I am sure my readers are familiar with that old saw that starts "For want of a nail the shoe was lost..." and goes all the way up to the rider's failure to deliver a message losing the kingdom. It sounds a bit hyperbolic, but I think I have found a real life example. It doesn't start with anything quite as trivial as a missing nail, but it does show how radicals of the 1960's managed to lose a presidential election in 2008 that most considered a sure thing.

At one time primaries were "winner takes all" in both parties. However, the 1968 convention and all the chaos that occurred brought about massive changes in the Democrats. Not only did the party move to the left, but they also instituted changes in how the primaries were held. The McGovern-Fraser reforms of the mid-1970's moved the Democrats from winner takes all to proportional representation, where each state allocates its delegates among the candidates who receive the most votes. It was a change that seemed pleasing to the newly radical Democrat leadership, as proportional representation meant that "every vote counted", or at least as close as one could come to that goal. It was thought to give a voice to substantial blocks of voters who were being rendered silent in elections by the majority voting block in their state.

It all sounded great, but it turned out there was one problem. Once you start to dilute the delegates from a state, you tend to end up with no one getting a majority of the delegates in the primary. If you have more than two viable contenders it is even worse. So, unless there is a clear front runner established early in the race, or all but one candidate concedes, the proportional representation results in brokered conventions, resulting in hard feelings and the appearance of smoky back room deals deciding the party's candidate.

And sow as born the super delegate. These were prominent politicians and party notables who would be given a vote equivalent to  a state delegate in the nominating convention. The idea was that these super delegates would serve to turn a lead into a win. They would simply have to throw their weight behind the leading candidate should he not have enough delegates to secure the nomination. In that way they could eliminate the need for a brokered convention without seeming to short-circuit the electoral process.

But that is not what happened in 2008. In these primaries, the delegates began to commit themselves early, taking sides in the Hillary-Obama struggle. Rather than simply rubber stamping the popular vote, they became a force themselves. And when Hillary started to stage a comeback in the last days of the primary race, the party put pressure on these delegate to throw their weight behind Obama, effectively deciding the race before Hillary could muddy the waters by securing more delegates and generating a claim that the momentum wa sin her favor. In other words, the super delegates effectively put an end to the primary process before the final few states could vote.

And that is how the 1960's radicals lost the election of 2008. The changes they put into motion ended up with the super delegates essentially forcing Clinton form the race. And as a result, Hillary's supporters, and a number of others upset at the apparent breach of democratic process, began to give every sign that they would vote for McCain rather than Obama. A while ago, Obama's internal  polling numbers showed up to 15% of Democrats were crossing over to vote for McCain. As Obama has not had much luck wooing independents, that represents a significant problem for his campaign, and one he really cannot cure. Even putting Hillary on the ticket would likely only mollify some. The arrogance of the party has turned off some to such a degree they would not return even with Hillary sharing the ticket.

It isn't quite as clear cut as the nail-shoe-horse-message-army-battle-kingdom line from the aphorism, but it is clear enough. In the ultimate irony, the friend of Billy Ayers may lose what was considered a certain win in a presidential election because of riots that Ayers himself helped to start forty years ago.

POSTSCRIPT

I do not want to give the impression that the "winner takes all" process is without fault. It can cause serious distortions in results. A candidate getting only 51% of several states early on can effectively seal the nomination event hough most voters in the party oppose him. It is made even worse, as we saw in this election, when there are open primaries in early states. However, I think overall the winner takes all, by making brokered conventions unlikely, is still far superior to the proportional representation method.