Only the Democratic Party could conclude that their main problem in the 2004 election was that the people who nominated John F. Kerry were too white:

An influential Democratic committee on Saturday endorsed the idea of adding as many as four state primaries and caucuses to the early presidential nominating season, now dominated by Iowa and New Hampshire.

The goal, they said, was to add more racial, ethnic, regional and economic diversity to the process of choosing a Democratic nominee.

Iowa, whose caucus marks the opening of the nominating season, and New Hampshire, which holds the first primary, have long been criticized as far too homogeneous and atypical to exercise such a powerful influence over the process.

Back-to-back victories in those states can set a candidate on a glide path to the nomination — as they did for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts in 2004 — before the bigger and more diverse states weigh in.

And, just to prove that the DNC is in complete disarray, they can’t even figure out what the problem is in the first place:

The commission also debated using bonus delegates to reward states that move their contests back in the season. This is an effort to deal with another criticism of the nominating process — that it is too “front-loaded,” with too many states bunched together in the early weeks.

So, the problem is that the nomination process is too front-loaded, so the solution is to have six states decide nominees before February 5th, instead of two. My mind truly boggles at the concept.

I hesitate to give advice on this matter to either major party, but the party that figures out first that the primary and caucus process is a giant waste of time and money and goes back to using the conventions to select nominees will probably end up nominating much more credible candidates.