Charles Blow makes a good suggestion today in his Op-Ed, that the perceived injustice of Superdelegates can be toned down by having them commit later in the election cycle, say max 2 weeks before Iowa - e.g. after they've had a chance to hear new contenders.

I'm sympathetic to Superdelegates not because Hillary's leading or I think we should support the establishment, but basically having an escape valve for the kinds of losers the GOP is vetting seems healthy.

I don't know if that would have been meaningful in 1972 (it was the media that doomed Muskie, and infighting and intrigue with Humphrey, Carter, George Wallace and John Connolly's "Democrats for Nixon" in the chaos of 16 contenders that doomed McGovern as much as his disastrous appointment of Eagleton - though Convention rules then emboldened them more than Superdelegate rules would have).

And despite or because of the Convention chaos, important new issues arose and created a new type of party that should have changed much from all the activism of the 60's. That new birth was arguably more important than winning the election, though the impeachment & resignation roughly gave the best of both worlds.

And Carter was exactly the type of insurgent we should support (ignoring his sneakiness in 1972 and his arguably tepid presidency) - he won the election in 1976, and ushered in a Democratic southern wave that countered Nixon's Southern Strategy. 

The other issue Blow addresses are the caucuses. By lowering participation through longer time windows and more complicated setting, plus the lack of privacy in publicly declaring your pick are strongly anti-democratic (from a group that complains about showing ID at the polls).

At the same time, caucuses do offer some way of shuffling the deck or breaking up the pool table that a purely money-dominated race wouldn't allow. It's worth considering that undemocratic methods sometimes promote a type of democracy that wouldn't fester up through the cracks without. Of course like Affirmative Action, no one likes it when they're on the other side, but "fair" often requires a broader appreciation of chance and easy access to the competition. It's also a concern that the insurgents have less of a chance than incumbents by the very nature of the game - the new kid almost always has less renown and fewer resources. Somehow the transition needs to occur anyway.

Of course I'd be reluctant to attribute winning caucuses to "greater popularity", vs. a certain kind of organizational ability, a support for particular kinds of enthusiasm, and a bit of luck.

If I think about it, I kinda like the combination of Superdelegates (declaring later) to counter the worst possibilities of having a large number of Caucuses. Otherwise it would have been a boring year to date, and the party would have been worse off. And actually the Superdelegates have never been used, only there if needed. So unsurprisingly, I guess I'm sticking with the status quo - though this year's anti-establishment fans seem to have taken to the more spicy, undemocratic status quo as well.

Any suggestions? or is this slight modification as good as it gets?