Democrats spent 40 years engineering the perfect presidential nomination system. Instead we engineered a perfect train wreck.

We now are in perfect position to blow an election that should be ours.

We have two strong, popular candidates for the nomination. Neither has put the race away. They are tired, frustrated and getting madder at each other every day. Their supporters are getting more and more bitter. And the party is about to fracture on racial and gender lines.

Here is how we got here:

• After the 1968 Chicago convention, the party went on a reform bender: Cut the bosses’ power, and empower the grassroots. The result was George McGovern and the 1972 debacle. North Carolina got a Republican Governor – and Jesse Helms.

• In 1982, the commission chaired by Governor Hunt – with David Price as staff director – created the superdelegates. The superdelegates’ job was to pick a winner. They picked Walter Mondale, who lost 49 states. North Carolina got another Republican Governor, and Helms beat Jim Hunt for Senate.

• Over the years, the party replaced winner-take-all primaries and caucuses with proportional representation. The result – when you have two strong candidates like now – is that neither can win without the superdelegates.

• During the last four years, so as not to be left out of the nominating fun, states front-loaded primaries and caucuses. The result is that Obama rode his wave to an insuperable lead after Super Tuesday in early February. But he could not win outright.

If we lose in November – thanks to 40 years of reforms – you can count on one thing: We will have another set of reforms to get it right next time.

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