But Scruff, you better than anyone else know that the sentiments expressed on this board don't reflect the sentiments of voters across the country. Romney got more popular votes than all of the other GOP candidates (Santorum, Gingrich, Paul, Huntsman, Perry, Bachmann and "Other") combined. Those votes came from individual American citizens, not from some imagined establishment machine. Sure beats the old days before there were primaries in most states when candidates were chosen in those legendary smoke-filled rooms.

Remember the infamous 1968 Democratic convention, which gave the nomination to Hubert Humphrey, who had a total of 2% of the primary votes that year, compared to McCarthy's 37%? That was because only 14 states held primaries that year, taking the decision out of the hands of the people and awarding it to the insiders. With all states now participating in the primary/caucus selection process, the power on the GOP side is in the hands of the people, specifically those people who come out to vote. The remaining weakness in the system is primarily in the Democrat party which used the superdelegate system to determine the outcome of the 2008 Democratic nomination. The Republicans have very few superdelegates and thus the GOP primaries/caucuses are more important the than that of the Dems. Clinton competed very strongly with Obama throughout the 2008 primary season and trailed him by only small margins in both votes and delegates won through to the final primary, yet lost to Obama badly in the massive superdelegate (party officials and insiders) category, led by Kennedy and Kerry, with most of the other powerbrokers following the lead of those two men.

The fact there there about 16-18 Republicans who have at least a longshot chance to win the 2016 nomination makes a strong case that the outcome is not pre-determined. If a Republican candidate captures the confidence and trust of the voters, and is able to motivate them to cast a vote in the primaries/caucuses, that candidate will gain financial backing as his (her) momentum builds and will be able to remain viable all the way through the primaries, adding more weight to the late-primary states. There was no such candidate in 2012 for the GOP, other than Romney. On the Dem side, due to the superdelegate system, an "insider" candidate can come out of the primaries in second place and win the nomination with room to spare.

The Democrats use power politics in terms of the nomination process in a far more heavyhanded manner than the Republicans do.

I illustrated the case just the other day that the Romney primary win in heavily-Democrat New Jersey wiped out 5 Southern Romney losses in the South in 2012 (the proposed "SEC Pact" states planing a March 1st regional primary in 2016), in terms of delegates won, simply by wisely avoiding the same mistake those same Republican states are about to make again this year.