The underlying question is
why neither candidate looks to win an outright majority on the primaries alone. Conventional wisdom is that the Dem's proportional system doesn't let the math work out that way. But there were several opportunities of either an Obama popular upswell or a Hillary popular upswell over the past couple of months, that would have caused an obvious victory even with the proportional system.
What Dems need to worry about just as much is that the lack of a clear winner is because neither Obama or Hillary are able to "close the deal"... that as soon as one looks like they might win, the public takes a step back and admits that they don't really want that one to win... that they are excited to have 2 strong candidates but are not thrilled about the idea of either actually getting into the White House.
Unless I'm mistaken, Democrats did not adjust the number of delegates needed to win their party's nomination after they excluded Michigan and Florida. That left their candidates short, so to speak, providing no margins for a close race. Again, they did not see the implications of moving primaries, penalizing the non-compliant states, and not reducing the nomination threhold. Clearly for ideological reasons, they also did not appreciate the merits of an Electoral College mandate that the Founders intended.
Like other half-baked national programs proposed through the years that subsequently developed unexpected dysfunctional effects, these Democrats failed to anticipate all scenarios, including the train wreck now looming that has the potential of splitting their party wide open. If there is a brutal convention fight with the "wrong" outcome, it may cause blacks (or women) to walk. But, what did they expect when they put the flower children in charge in an adult world? I'll take the CEO/manager who knows how to get things done any day.
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