Nobody said that politics was supposed to be clean and pretty, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen things this ugly as they are in the current race for the Democrat presidential nomination. The race between Clinton and Obama has gotten personal, with issues of race and gender rising to the fore, pushing out the more substantive concerns of the day.

They should have seen it coming.

In what was probably the interest of “fairness,” the Democrats established its current system of proportional delegates for its primaries and caucuses, along with those superdelegates. This system was fine as long as there was a clear front-runner with lots of cash and early wins. But with two strong candidates and no clarity this deep into the primary season, along with the sheer stupidity of Florida and Michigan in defying the rules of the party’s schedule, the process is quickly sinking into chaos.

Speaking of chaos, don’t be angry at Rush for his tweaking of Democrats with “Operation Chaos,” encouraging Hillary to stay in the race. He’s just poking some fun at this convoluted process the Dems have gotten themselves in.

There’s a few complications that I don’t get:

  • The concept of an open primary: as far as I can tell, isn’t a political party a private organization? So why should Republicans and independents be able to vote in open Democrat primaries and vice versa? These open primaries don’t make sense and just invite havoc. I’m pretty confident that John McCain would not be the current Republican nominee had there not been open primaries in the early states.
  • Winner take all: the proportional delegate distribution doesn’t work, at least on a statewide basis, if the race is close. At minimum, there should be winner-take-all delegates at the congressional district level, if not state-wide. That’s how most all states send their electors to the Electoral College after the general election; that’s how it should work in the primary.
  • Superdelegates: these big wigs just invite corruption and smoke-filled back room deals at the convention in a close race. There’s something seemingly undemocratic about the Democrat superdelegate process.

So as charges and countercharges volley between these candidates, know that it didn’t have to be this way.