A persistent theme of Bernie Sanders' insurgent Democratic campaign-and, until recently Donald Trump's-is that the political system is rigged against outsiders like them who challenge the political establishment.
Polls show most Americans agree. Trump's gripes were essentially personal, stemming from his campaign's failure to plan for the fact that each state had different rules and procedures.
Sanders' complaint is more generic, directed at party rules limiting participation in some states to registered Democrats and allocating 15 percent of the delegates to elected and party officials known as superdelegates.
His diminishing chance of winning depends largely on persuading those superdelegates to abandon their support of Hillary Clinton because many polls show him running better against Trump.
He's right that the Democratic rules give the party establishment extra clout. Democrats deliberately changed their system to grant their leading figures a role in picking their nominees, a reaction to their minimal role in the 1972 and 1980 nominating fights.
That stemmed largely from the way Sen. George McGovern took advantage of new rules making the process more democratic and of opposition to the Vietnam War to win the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. The new rules-which he helped write-forced elected and party officials to take sides, and many lost delegate races backing his rivals or running on unsuccessful "favorite son" slates. Their absence from the convention exacerbated party divisions and contributed to McGovern's weak showing.
After another divisive primary fight between President Jimmy Carter and Sen. Edward Kennedy in 1980, party and elected officials vowed to regain a place in the nominating process without having to choose a candidate in advance. A party panel initially allotted 20 percent of the votes to superdelegates, but a compromise lowered it to 15 percent, where it's generally stayed.
All Democrats in the House, Senate and governorships are delegates, as are former party chairs, past congressional leaders and the 450 members of the Democratic National Committee. Republicans don't have superdelegates, but guarantee seats to their 168 national committee members, about 6 percent of the total.
Theoretically, superdelegates are supposed to provide an independent voice to exercise leadership in the nominating contest. They have rarely inserted themselves, but their inclusion ensures greater integration of the party's presidential and congressional campaigns and brought greater success, winning or coming close in six of eight presidential elections by nominating more broadly acceptable candidates than McGovern.
Sanders' problem is two-fold. He probably won't win a majority of elected delegates. And the years he spent as an independent, opposing both Democratic and Republican candidates in Vermont, have hampered his campaign for superdelegates. Over the years, he has done far less for Democratic candidates than Clinton.
The Sanders forces have undercut their chances with aggressive social media campaigns, including some direct confrontations to persuade superdelegates to follow the popular vote. In Seattle, several were arrested after refusing to leave the office of Rep. Jim McDermott, a Clinton supporter from a strongly pro-Sanders district. In Nevada, the two sides clashed in a near-riot at the meeting to select delegates.
Since Clinton will likely hold majorities of both elected and superdelegates, the Sanders forces face an uphill fight at the Democratic Convention if they try to change the rules to open all primaries to independents or reduce the future role of superdelegates. Leaders of both parties strongly believe their own members should pick their nominees. The best the Sanders delegates might do is to force creation of yet another party commission to study these issues. Unsurprisingly, the Sanders forces never mention that caucuses are somewhat undemocratic because they generally attract fewer voters than primaries, presumably because a majority of Sanders' wins were in caucus states. Nebraska's non-binding presidential primary last week, won by Clinton, drew more than double the voters than the earlier caucuses to pick delegates, which Sanders won.
Both party's nominating systems are messy, but two things are clear. The courts have ruled the parties themselves are entitled to set their nominating rules. And despite the grousing, both likely nominees this year are the candidates who got the most votes.