A lot of people miss the point of the primaries. They are not, for lack of a better term, public elections. They are the parties election. Each party is holding there own internal election to select the 'parties' nominee. They get to establish their own rules and process.
They create the allusion of it being a public election by allowing any registered voter to participate (in most states), and by holding the primaries on government facilities. But at whose expense? You don’t think the parties foot the bill for the primaries do you?
The public is allowed to participate, but it is perfectly legitimate to 'stack' the process to keep it in the parties hands, this also creates the opportunity for non-party members to affect their selection process, ie. crossover voting in primaries to screw with the other parties selection process. To counteract crossover voting they maintain some control with the 'super-delegates' process, which keeps crossover voting from screwing with their party process.
By creating the allusion of fairness and openness they are perpetuating the power of their two-parties to discourage third parties. If any of the current candidates were to run (now or later) independent of the two parties they would be at a disadvantage because of the time missed and the taint of moving away from a party they previously claimed to support. That doesn’t rule out the possibility of winning, but when did that last happen? Because Bernie has always claimed to be independent he might survive such a move. On the Republican side, Trump could make such a move, but he would be hurt because it would lend criticism to a common believe that he was being duplicitous in his party affiliation (but then his negative traits have failed to hurt him so far), all the other candidates would have a lot of explaining to do if they made such a move. 
We have a 2 party system that dominates the process and part of that dominance is their control over down ballot politics... ie., the party establishment. How is it that 'party' primaries are funded by tax payers.
This is how the 2 parties exclude any real chance of a third party or independent candidate from running a viable national campaign. The pledged delegates is another way they guarantee an independent like Bernie can't win, or a renegade populist like Trump when running within one of the two parties.
Trump is no more a Conservative, let alone a Republican than Bernie is a party Democrat.
To become viable they have to run under a party banner... if they make enough progress and have a big enough ego then they could mount an independent 3rd ticket run, but they wouldn't stand a chance if they ran that way from the beginning. (Remember Ross Perot). Whats the first response you will hear if Bernie or trump mention an independent run at this point? It will be that they are handing the election to the other party? So run with us against them, or don't run at all. That's the way the two parties want it so lets not complain when they reluctantly play the game according to the two parties rules.
This is the system created by party politics, not the constitution, to guarantee their shared dominance.
The fairest way would be for the parties to limit primary voting to party members and declared party affiliations only. This would remove most voters from the primaries, but a lot of voters don't bother to vote in the primaries anyway. A lot of independents don't vote in primaries either... that's why they are independents... no party alliance. I say a lot because most people claiming to be independents are really just democrats and republicans trying to appear neutral, for various reasons; trolling. denial, and indecisiveness, but nobody wants to admit to any of those positions.
Myself, I don't vote in primaries... I try to be issues oriented and stay open-minded until the general election. The entire primary process does little more than to create a money raising machine that runs for 8 months, allowing non-contenders to raise funds to bankroll at a later date. If you wanted to effectively elect a party representative you would hold your debates, have one or two days of primaries across the nation and then begin the general campaign. But that wouldn't allow for media drama, big-buck fund-raising, or political maneuvering by otherwise insignificant lower tier candidates. It will never happen because it would create an opportunity for, and encourage, more spontaneous third-party candidates (the best weapon against a monopolistic 2-party system.)
Do you realize we spend more time selecting nominees than we do electing the office-holder? Over a year of debates and primaries versus 3-5 months of general election campaigning.
GlennDL
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