ACH: prevent primaries and caucuses from deciding the nominee

How do we prevent the most committed, ideological voters in each party from selecting the candidate? How do we keep it the domain of a deal struck in a smoke-filled room? How does this affect the winners in each election? It seems to me that, if it were up to party bosses, Scoop Jackson would have been the Democratic nominee in 1976, George H W Bush would have gotten the nod in 1980, Gary Hart or someone like him would have gotten the nod in either 1988 or 1992, and Hillary Clinton would have gotten the nod in 2008.
Thoughts?
 
How do we prevent the most committed, ideological voters in each party from selecting the candidate?

That's not what happens. The drawn-out primary process allows support to coalesce around a single candidate before the convention.

It's been pointed out that the end of the national conventions as a place of real political bargaining and maneuvering came as travel and communications improved.

In earlier times, the party bigwigs in the various states had little face to face contact. Long-distance telephony was costly and difficult. By the 1950s, both conditions had changed, and the discussions and bargaining that had happened at conventions was done earlier.
 
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