Most of the folks that show up for primary elections are very serious party members. A common primary strategy is for the candidates to try and out-party the other. "I'm MORE Republican and conservative (Democratic and populist, etc.) than the other candidate." After the primary both (or all) the candidates try to position themselves as moderates to gain votes from the voters who ride the fence.

I think the electoral college made sense when communications were slow and unreliable, because the delegates could then get together and bring the news from their state. It also makes sense when you have more than two parties winning electoral votes, because some delegates have to vote for another candidate, which moderates the vote.

I don't think that it makes sense in this day and age. I disagree Doug -- I think the electoral college minimizes the voice of smaller states. Presidential candidates play the system -- which is fine if you live in California or New York, but if you live in a less-populated state the candidate is unlikely to address your state's concerns when he's campaigning and it's harder to make an educated choice. If one candidate can carry both NY and CA, it's pretty hard to lose and the rest of the country can be practically ignored -- the other candidate has to have almost all the medium size states andmsot of the small states to win. I'd like to see it go away in favor of a true one-person one-vote democracy, but I think splitting the electoral votes instead of a winner-take-all system is a good compromise.

But I doubt the electoral college will go away any time soon. Modifying the Constitution is awfully hard (as it should be), and just because you call a Constitutional Convention to address one issue doesn't mean they can't make other changes while they are at it. It's a scary thing.