Hypothetically speaking, if you are a white male in your 60s and living in Denver, what path do you take to become a delegate to the Democratic National Convention? That obviously presumes you meet the minimum test of being registered as a Democrat. (Which makes this fully hypothetical in that I’ve been an unaffiliated voter for well over two decades.)

If you’re a glutton for punishment, like math as much as Andrew Yang and fancy yourself a bit of a contortionist to top it off, then check out the Colorado Democratic Party’s “Delegate Selection Plan for the 2020 Democratic National Convention.”

The plan requires a full 54 pages. That’s almost one page per delegate.

Political parties can set their own rules and are free to be as crazy as they want. Lord knows, Democrats do not have a monopoly on wackiness or excess.

Donkeys can be asses. Just as elephants can walk around with their heads hanging low, chowing down on nuts.

America seems to have a distinct attachment these days to complexity. But Colorado Democrats have gone far beyond any necessary norm in putting forth a mind-numbingly convoluted delegate selection plan.

The overlay of a presidential primary with an antiquated, participation-shrinking process of precinct caucuses and county and state assemblies is complex enough. Then add to this the fact that some delegates are selected at the statewide level based on the outcome of the primary while most are picked within each congressional district based on the results in that particular fragment of the state. 

All of those delegates are selected, appropriately so, in proportion to each candidate’s vote total in Colorado’s Super Tuesday primary. Though with the proviso of a 15 percent “viability” threshold to be awarded any delegates. So on a statewide level, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren all qualified for delegates to be allocated proportionally based on their respective percentages of roughly 36, 23, 21 and 17.

However, most delegates are awarded at the congressional district level where it is possible, even likely, that not every candidate met that 15 percent viability test. 

Then to fill out Colorado’s delegation to the Milwaukee convention, nine party leader or elected official slots are added. Call them “super-delegates,” for short. 

Plenty complicated, huh? Oh, no, we’re just warming up.

Any responsible institution these days acts on a commitment to diversity and reasonable inclusion. In this case, Democrats being Democrats, of course this goal becomes a consuming obsession.

Consequently, the selection plan includes an unbending requirement of a 50-50 split in the delegation between men and women. Some congressional districts with an odd number of delegates are assigned an extra male; others an extra female.

All well and good because all of us are defined, first and foremost, by our gender.

Again, we’re still in the early stages of categorization. Next up, the state Democratic Party sets forth specific goals for the representation of African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans along with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. 

Because we all must be defined as well by our racial and ethnic genetics. Can two separate criteria each be, “first and foremost”?

But wait, there’s more. Additional highly specific goals are established for LGBTQ individuals as well as disabled persons, youth (anyone under age 36), veterans and labor union members. 

All those classifications are apparently definitional, too. 

To be a Democrat these days and to buy into such a dogmatic approach is to reject individualism in favor of compulsive box-checking. It is to make group identity all-consuming and all-important. It is a mania to be pursued at all costs while quaint ideas such as individual merit and characteristics are relegated to being distinctly secondary considerations. 

Of course, we’re not done yet. There’s one more layer to all this. 

Significant chunks of this plan are devoted to, “Overlaying the non-binary gender identification.” Clearly, transgender individuals should have every opportunity to run for delegate slots. But in a party so consumed by identity boxes, this provides quite the wrinkle. The selection plan navigates this by allowing “non-binary” aspirants to take a delegate position previously set aside for either a man or woman.

If you can read through this full plan, page by page, you have more persistence and discipline than I. If you can make sense of it, you have more brain cells. And if you can actually put it into action, given all of the overlapping categories and requirements, then the local university has a position waiting for you teaching quantum physics. 

Democrats can assert all they want that this is nothing more than “affirmative action.” But a quota is a quota, no matter what label you put on it.

While Donald Trump and his minions waltz merrily forward, too often diminishing or demonizing minorities whether overtly or more subtly. In our dysfunctional mess, both parties play their own special game of identity politics. Neither adheres to some basic American precepts of individual agency and determination. 

But in this case, Colorado Democrats did an over-the-top job of dressing up their wokeness and putting a big bow around it. Good luck to them in assembling a delegation of actual individuals while remaining true to all their stated intentions, criteria and set-asides. 

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. His column appears on Sundays in ColoradoPolitics. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann