Originally, before passage of the 17th amendment, you voted for your members of the state legislature and they voted for your senators!
The original design is representative democracy.
Personally I have no problem understanding the term "Presidential Preference Primary" ~ and given the exigencies and contingencies of political life, you really don't want to tie a delegate to voting for a dead guy, or someone who quit the campaign either.
Your state is being represented at the National Convention by delegates you elect, or who you gave recommendations to.
If you want the other system you'd best hurry because there are very few states around anymore that lock in Democratic Centrism as a guiding principle!
Yes, but in a representative democracy, the representatives themselves campaign publicy for office, explain themselves to voters, etc.. You are voting for people about whom you actually have some relevant knowledge. That's sort of the entire principle of representative democracy, right? And I don't recall anyone running and saying "hey, I want to be a presidential delegate, vote for me!"
So (the question you didn't answer) who are these people acting as delegates? Their names weren't on my ballot when I voted in the Presidential primary. I voted for Newt.
Personally I have no problem understanding the term "Presidential Preference Primary" ~ and given the exigencies and contingencies of political life, you really don't want to tie a delegate to voting for a dead guy, or someone who quit the campaign either.
That's true, although there are a great many situations where the candidate isn't dead, and I think delegates should be legally bound at least on the first ballot to that candidate.
But then the question is who should select the delegates who may have to make a different decision if their candidate drops out, dies, or we have to go to a second ballot? Because I have no effing clue who those people are. As I said, the name on my ballot was Newt. So it seems to me that if I trusted Newt's judgement enough to support him as the nominee, then the best proxy for that with delegates is Newt picking his own delegates as the people most likely to mirror his thinking, and therefore best represent the intent of my vote.
But instead, some faceless party functionary who may disagree with both me and Newt on a ton of issues, who I don't know from Adam, is just going to make his own choice as a delegate? That's not representative democracy -- that's just a self-perpetuating political oligargchy of a professional political class.