General Discussion

It will always be true that among the group of powerful Democrats, elected and behind the scenes, that there will be times when there is group think that lines them up behind a candidate. For the 2008 race, there were powerful people lined up behind Hillary Clinton as soon as Kerry lost if not before.

The design of the 2008 primaries was to have a short battle that Clinton would win on super Tuesday, when something like 23 states decided, including many large states. Obama's team needed Clinton to make mistakes, for his team to make none, and for it to become a two person race.

In 1976, 1992, and 2004, there were pretty wide open races and in all of these it was the primaries that determined the winner.

Another example is that 2020 could easily have gone to someone other than Biden. If anything the problem was there were too many competitive candidates. Until South Carolina, Biden greatly underperformed. Had there been one "not Biden" rather than many diverse possibilities, the results could have been different. Until Biden won SC, I think the only important Democrats who publicly backed him were Clyburn, who likely "gave" him SC and John Kerry. Clearly there was no coronation. President Obama was notably silent.

In the last several decades, there has never been essentially a coronation except when we had an incumbent President going into the election. In 1996, 2012 and 2020, we had a President seeking a second term. I think the fact that some blamed Kennedy's primarying Carter for the loss led to no credible challenge.

Even in 2000 and 2016, when we had the Presidency, but he was term limited, there was an open contest even though in both cases, there was a candidate the Democratic party leaders stood behind.
Gore and Clinton were clearly the party favorites, but there were still more credible challenges than Dean Phillips. Bill Bradley, was an important Senator, Rhodes Scholar and former Knick. O'Malley on paper sounded good, but it was Bernie, who even in his hometown was seen as a very long shot, who got about 40 percent of the primary v