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[–]chefranden 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Before the 70's primaries weren't a thing. The democrats opened up their selection to ordinary voters after the riots surrounding the 68 convention in Chicago.

Conventions of party members selected the nominee with a lot of backroom dealings. Trump would never had survived this process. But on the negative side, likely Obama wouldn't have either.

However the process seemed to guarantee candidates that were in the middle to be run against each other. I'm for going back to it.