They couldn’t imagine that the old buffaloes in their back rooms might bear any wisdom worth preserving. They never seemed to ponder whether the kind of candidate that could win majorities in open Democratic primaries, where activists were overrepresented, would always be the best ones to win over the full electorate—or to arrest the exile of working-class and Southern voters to a Nixonian Republican Party. They viewed “openess” and “participation” as ends in themselves, and presumed victory would follow.
