Political parties are not intended to be democratic institutions, and their nominees are not supposed to be chosen to represent the "will of the people."  Political parties are supposed to be voices for particular values and policies.  Although obscured by news pressure of the next primary or caucus, this quite properly undemocratic aspect of party selection shows up in an interesting background story to the two contested party nominations.  Republican and Democrat conventions are not based upon "one man, one vote" or the anything like that at all.  Both political parties give delegates to those states based upon how each state has supported the party in recent elections.  This means that "red" states get a lot more Republican delegates than "blue" states of the same size and that "blue" states get a lot more Democrat delegates that "red" states of the same size.  The two parties have...(Read Full Article)