Even if it's the neighborhood elementary school cafeteria instead of the local saloon, what could be more undemocratic than having to publicly declare your support for a candidate and to have to convince your neighbor that your choice is better than their candidate? Could Homer Simpson really get Ned Flanders to switch his vote? Should the Democratic nominee be based on this absurd concept?
The most egregiously undemocratic aspect of caucuses is that they totally favor the candidate who's getting the best media coverage (umm...I wonder who the MSM has been fawning over for six months?) over the candidate that's been demonized for years (to the point of becoming a cartoonish villain so that when people actually listen to her they go, "Exactly why don't I like her?") and subject to sexist attacks in the current campaign (Tweety, Shuster, Fineman...too many to list). Many people who would have no problem voting for Hillary in the privacy of a polling booth won't show up at a caucus to be forced to defend that vote in a hostile environment...and they shouldn't have to.
The second undemocratic aspect is that the hours-long nature of the caucuses disenfranchises older voters and voters who work during the caucus period. Who wants to spend three hours casting what should be a 10-minute vote?
Third, because any candidate who can mobilize a small number of super-committed supporters can overwhelm a caucus. In the future, this could favor a demagogue like a Rush Limbaugh type who could get the numbers of supporters to participate that would completely sway the outcome, but not speak for the much larger number of voters that would vote in a primary in that state.
Lastly, because democracy is fundamentally based on an individual casting a ballot in the privacy of a voting booth. Period. Press coverage, peer pressure and time commitments should not be the determining factors.
What does it say that Hillary won every primary in the largest states with the broadest, most diverse electorates (and would have won Florida and Michigan's delegates, too, if their Democratic parties hadn't been so stupid as to get themselves disqualified), while Obama built his presumably insurmountable lead by winning caucuses in mostly red states where the Democrats have no chance of winning in November (and, no, the 20,000 votes that Obama got in Kansas do not mean the Democrats can carry it in November when 1,000,000 mostly Republican voters will vote in the privacy of a polling booth)? He lost California by 400,000 votes out of 4,000,000 cast. Shouldn't that count more than three or four small caucus wins in red states?
It may be that Obama is the best candidate for now, but it's a suspect proposition, since he's been able to skate by without doing anything but talk about "hope" for 40 minutes at rallies, dominate caucuses in red states and make really naive claims about how he will "Bring the country together." Does he understand that the 25% of the country that watches Fixed News all day and still supports W. (the worst President ever) will NEVER support progressive positions? That the mission of the right wing is to defeat the progressive agenda? That right when the Republican ideology has run it's course after 28 years, Obama wants to let them compromise progressive goals regarding stem cells, global warming, tax policy and every other point on the agenda. I'm concerned that he has no idea of what he's in for, but he's been able to get away with ridiculous claims because of all his caucus wins.
I think Hillary would be the better candidate now to clean up Bush's mess and Obama can take over in eight years. Both will benefit from expanded Democratic majorities in the House and Senate during what figures to be a decades-long Democratic, progressive era. If Obama is the best candidate, he should be the nominee. Winning caucuses with thousands of participants and losing the primaries where millions vote doesn't prove that. For the legitimacy of future nominations, caucuses should be abolished.