WI: Modern-day primaries taking place before the 70s

Before the 1970s, primaries were just in a couple of states and were weird (In 1968, only Reagan was on the ballot on the California primary!!!). Reagan was not the only one, Dewey got 100% of Illinois's vote in 1940, Humphrey got 100% of South Dakota's vote in 1960 etc... 1972/1975 was when the modern-day style primaries finally took place in EVERY state, and no one has gotten 100% in a primary since. How can modern-day primaries exist before the 1970s?
 
You would need some sort of situation which comes close to creating the demand for reform which followed the Democratic nomination process of 1968 in which Humphrey won the nomination without competing in primaries. Given that 1968 was hardly a typical year in American politics, this is a tough challenge to meet as, in many respects, the circumstances of 1968 were highly unusual and unique to that particular year. Moreover, while there had been calls for reform prior to 1968, the peculiar ugliness of 1968, and the fact that Democrats lost in the fall, made party insiders unusually receptive to reform calls that they had theretofore disregarded.

The modern process, which began for the Democrats in 1972, was the product of the McGovern-Fraser Commission (yes, that McGovern) established in response to demands for reform of the process. Reform was demanded by a number of party activists who objected to the closed, insider-run process that took place in many states and shut reformers out of the delegate selection process. While we think of these reforms as embracing primaries, the reforms were much broader than that, mandating open meetings, clearly established delegate selection procedures, abolition of the unit rule, affirmative action targets and a number of similar provisions aimed at creating a fairer and more open process. While primaries had played a role in things before 1972, e.g. JFK in 1960, Wallace in 1964, RFK and McCarthy in 1968, strategy in primaries was generally aimed at proving electability to party leaders rather than a means in and of itself to win delegates. It was truly a major shift in how Democrats nominated Presidential candidates.
 
That is in part true but the Democratic has a massive number of super delegates. Those super delegates can vote for whom ever they feel like and they normally back someone with experience in Washington. Outsiders are not likely to get their support. Now take a look at the Republican Super Delegates, three per state, seven percent of the total delegates and they have to vote for the candidate who won their state. I think the Democratic Party could use a little more democracy right about now
 
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