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means of democratizing life, Americans invented primary elections. In a primary (more formally known as a direct primary), the party electorate
chooses which candidates will run for office under the party’s label. Then, in a later general election, all voters can make the final choice among the parties’ nominees for each office. To American voters neck—deep in primaries during an election season, this may seem like the “normal” way for parties to nominate candidates. But, in reality, it isn’t. Although the idea of a primary election has spread recently, candidates in most of the rest of the democratic world are still selected by party leaders, activists, or elected officials, not by voters.1
These differences in nomination procedures help us understand how American party politics differs from those of other democracies. The shift to prim'aries forced the American parties to develop a different set of strategies in supportm‘g candidates, contesting elections, and trying to hold elected officials accountable than we would find in nations that do not hold primaries.
The direct primary permeates every level of American politics. The great majority of states use it in all nominations. The other states use it for most elective offices. It dominates the presidential nominating process (see Chapter 10). Even though it is just the first of two steps in electing public officials, it reduces voters’ choices to a manageable number. The selection of nominees in the primary can affect the party’s chance of winning the general election. In areas where one party dominates, the voters’ only real choice is made in the primary. What led to the use of this two-step election process? How does it work and how well does it serve the needs of voters, candidates, and parties?
In addition to public opinion polls, drive-through restaurants, and other
HOW THE NOMINATION PROCESS EVOLVED For the first 110 years of the American republic, candidates for office were nominated by party caucuses and, later, by party conventions. In both cases, it was the leaders and activists of the party organizations who chose the party’s nominees, not the rest of the voting public.
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Nominations by Caucus In the early years, as the parties began to establish local and state organizations, they held local party caucuses to choose candidates for county offices. Caucuses of like-minded partisans in Congress continued to nominate presidential and vice-presidcntial candidates. Similar party caucuses in state legislatures chose candidates for governor and other statewide offices. These caucuses were generally informal, and there were no procedures for ensuring that all the major figures of the party would take part.2
Nominations by Convention As the push for popular. democracy spread, these caucuses came to be seen as an aristocratic elite—“King Caucus”—that ignored public opinion. In 1831, a minor party called the Anti-Masons held a national convention to nominate its presidential candidate, hoping to get enough press attention to gain major party status. The Jacksonian Democrats held their own convention in time for. the 1832 election. From then on, through the rest of that century, conventions were the main means of nominating presidential candidates. These conventions were composed of delegates chosen by state and local party leaders, often at their own lower level nominating conventions.
These large and chaotic conventions looked more broadly representative than the caucuses but often were not. Delegates were chosen and the conventions managed by the party leaders. Reformers denounced the convention system as yet another form of boss rule. By the end of the 1800s, the Progressive movement led the drive for a new way of nominating candidates.3
Nominations by Direct Primaries The Progressives suggested that instead of giving party leaders the power to choose, voters should be able to select their party’s candidates for each office directly. This direct, primary (or first) election reflected the Progressives’ core belief: The best way to cure a democracy’s ills was to prescribe larger doses of democracy. Robert M. La Follette, a Progressive leader, argued that in a primary, “The nomination of the party will not be the result of ‘compromise’ or impulse, or evil design [as he felt it was in a party-run caucus/convention system] but the candidates of the majority, honestly and fairly nominated.”4
Some southern states had already used primaries at the local level in the years after the Civil War, to legitimize the nominees and settle internal disputes in their one-party Democratic systems. In the first two decades of the twentieth century, all but four other states adopted primaries for at least some of their statewide nominations. This was a time when one party or the other dominated the politics of many states—the most pervasive one-party rule in American history. It might be possible to tolerate the poor choices made by conventions when voters have a real choice in the general election, but when the nominees of the dominant party have no serious competition, those shortcomings were harder to accept. So the Progressives, who fought
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economic monopoly with antitrust legislation, used the direct primary as their major weapon in battling political monopoly.
Although the primary was designed to democratize the nominating process, many of its supporters hoped that it would have the further effect of crippling the political parties. Primaries would take away the party organization’s most important power—the nomination of candidates—and give it instead to party voters. In fact, some states, such as Wisconsin, adopted a definition of the party electorate so broad that it included any voters who chose to vote in the party’s primary on Election Day.
Primaries were not the first cause of party weakness in the United States. If party leaders had been strong enough throughout the country when primaries were proposed, then they would have been able to stop the spread of this reform and keep control of the nominations themselves. But primaries did undermine the party organizations’ power even further. Elected officials who were nominated by the voters in primaries were unlikely to feel as loyal to the party organization as were officials who owed their nominations to party leaders. Because of the existence of primaries, party leaders in the United States have less control over who will receive the party nomination than in most other democracies. In some states, the reforms required that even the party organization’s own leaders be chosen in primaries; the result was that the parties risked losm'g control over their own internal affairs.
THE CURRENT MIX 0F PRIMARIES AND CONVENTIONS Although conventions are no longer common, they are still used to nominate candidates m' a few states and, most visibly, in the contest for the presidency. Because states have the legal right to design their own nominating systems, the result is a mixture of primaries and conventions for choosing candidates for state offices.
Every state now uses primaries to nominate at least some statewide officials, and most states use this method exclusively.5 In four southern states, the party may choose to hold a convention instead of a primary, but only in Virginia has the convention option been used in recent years, as a means of unifying the party behind a particular candidate. Other states use conventions for some purposes. Iowa requires a convention when no candidate wins at least 35 percent of the primary vote. Three states (Indiana, Michigan, and South Dakota) use primaries for the top statewide offices but choose other nominees in conventions. Some (Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and Utah) hold conventions to screen candidates for the primary ballot, though in some cases, candidates can bypass the convention by filing a petition signed by party members.6 This variety of choices reminds us again that, in spite of the national parties’ growing strength, the state and local parties still hold a great deal of independent decision-making power.
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TYPES OF PRIMARIES States also differ in the criteria they use to determine who can vote in their primaries. There are three basic forms, although each has a lot of variations.7 In states with so-called closed primaries, only voters who have formally declared their affiliation with a party can participate. This makes it easier for party activists and identifiers to keep their party’s choice of nominees in their own hands. Voters in states with “open” primaries have more freedom to choose which party’s primary they want to vote in. And in a few states, Democratic and Republican candidates for state and local offices all run on the same primary ballot, so a voter can select some candidates of each party.
Closed Primaries About a dozen states hold a fully closed primary, in which voters have to register as a Democrat or a Republican prior to the election.8 Then they receive the primary ballot of only their own party when they come to vote. If they want to vote in the other party’s primary, they must formally change their party affiliation on the registration rolls before the primary. States with traditionally strong party organizations, such as New York and Pennsylvania, are among those that have been able to keep their primaries fully closed.
In most other states, whose primaries are often called semiclosed or semiopen, voters can change their party registration at the polls, or they can simply declare their party preference at the polling place. They are then given their declared party’s ballot and, in a few of these states, are considered to be enrolled in that party. This allows independents and even the other party’s identifiers to become “partisans for a day” and vote in a party’s primary. From the point of View of the voter, these primaries are not very different from an open primary. The difference is important from the party’s perspective, however, because in many of these semiclosed primaries there is a written record of party registration that can then be used by party organizations to target appeals to the people who claim to support them.
Open Primaries Citizens of the remaining states can vote in the primary of their choice without having to state publicly which party they favor.9 In these open primaries, voters receive either a consolidated ballot or ballots for every party, and they select the party of their choice in the privacy of the voting booth. They can vote in only one party’s primary in a given election. Many of these states have histories of Progressive strength.
Blanket Primaries The state of Washington adopted the blanket primary in 1935. It gives voters even greater freedom. The names of candidates from all parties appear on a
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single ballot in the primary, just as they do in the general election, so that in contrast to an open primary, a voter can choose a Democrat for one office and a Republican for another. Alaska later adopted the blanket primary as well.
California voters approved an initiative in 1996 to hold a blanket primary. Proponents said it would bring more voters to the polls and encourage the choice of more moderate candidates.10 Party leaders saw it differently. They claimed that the plan prevented the party’s loyal supporters from choosing the candidates who best represented their views. That, they said, violated their First Amendment right to freedom of association and kept the party from offering a clear and consistent message to the voters. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the parties and gave the right to decide who votes in a primary, at least in California, back to the party organizations.11
“Top Two” Primaries In 2008, Washington moved to a type of blanket prim'ary called a top two (or nonpartisan) system: Not only do all candidates’ names appear on the same ballot, but the top two vote getters for each office, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The party organization can still' endorse a candidate, but if voters prefer (and they often do), they can select two Democrats, or two Republicans, to run against one another in' the general election. Califorru'a voters adopted a similar system two years later.
Louisiana uses a version of this system for state and local elections.- If one candidate for an office wins more than 50 percent of the votes in the nonpartisan primary, he or she is elected to that office immediately. If no candidate for the office wins an outright majority in the primary, then a runoff between the two top candidates (again, regardless of party) is held at the time scheduled for the general election. Not surprisingly, major and minor parties oppose the use of a nonpartisan or top two system and prohibit states from adopting it in their presidential primaries.
When states shift" from one type of primary to another, it is usually because state party leaders are trying to protect that party’s interests in the nomin'atm'g process under changing political conditions. In some cases, a state party has attempted to attract independent voters by switching to an open primary. In others, party leaders have urged the legislature to adopt new primary rules that would advantage candidates the party leaders favor m' a particular election year. However, change has also been prompted by nonparty or antiparty groups, as was the case in California’s moves to a blanket and then a top two primary.
WHY DOES THE TYPE OF PRIMARY MATTER? These varieties of primaries represent different answers to a long-standing debate: Is democracy better served by competition between strong and disciplined parties or by a system in which parties have relatively little power? The closed primary reflects the belief that citizens benefit from having clear choices in elections, which can best be provided by strong, internally unified parties; therefore, it makes sense for a party’s candidates to be selected by that party’s loyal followers. By contrast, open and blanket primaries are closer to
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the view that rigid party loyalties can harm a democracy, so candidates should be chosen by all voters, regardless of party.
Most party organizations prefer the closed primary in which voters must register by party before the primary. It pays greater respect to the party’s right to select its candidates. Prior party registration also gives the parties a bonus— published lists of their partisans. Further, the closed primary limits the greatest dangers of open and blanket primaries, at least from the perspective of party leaders: crossing over and raiding. Both terms refer to people who vote in the primary of a party that they do not generally support. They differ in the voter’s intent. Voters cross over in order to take part in a more exciting race or to vote for a more appealing candidate in the other party. Raiding is a conscious effort to weaken the other party by voting for its least attractive candidates.
Studies of primary contests in Wisconsin and other states show that crossing over is common in open primaries. Partisans rarely cross over in off-year gubernatorial primaries because that would keep them from having a voice in other state and local—level party contests. But independents and partisans are more likely to cross over in a presidential primary or when only a few offices are on the ballot. In a 2006 Rhode Island Senate race, for example, more Democrats and independents voted in the open Republican primary than Republicans did. These crossover voters often support a different candidate than the party’s partisans do. In the Rhode Island race, crossover voting led to a victory for the more moderate Republican candidate, who was closer to the views of the Democrats and independents voting in the Republican contest.
Candidates, then, take the type of primary into account in building their campaign strategies. More moderate candidates for president, and those with a nontraditional appeal or a more independent image, often campaign especially in states with open prirn'aries, where they can benefit from the support of crossover voters. They encourage crossovers in these primaries by discussing issues that appeal to the other party’s voters.12 In 2008, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton by a larger margin among crossover Republicans and independents than among self-identified Democrats. Thus, he did better in open primaries such as Wisconsm"s, where a larger proportion of the votes came from independents and crossovers, than he did in closed primaries (see Figure 9.1). Even in New York, the state Clin'ton represented in the Senate, Obama was able to hold down her margin of victory because of his support among the small percentage of primary voters who told pollsters that although they were registered Democrats,» they actually considered themselves independents.
Organized raiding would be a bigger problem. It is a party leader’s nightmare that opponents will make mischief by voting in the party’s primary for the least appealing candidate. People with intense views sometimes encourage raiding. In Utah, for instance, a Republican state legislator encouraged Republican voters switch to the Democratic U.S. House primary in 2010 and vote for a lesbian candidate who favored abortion rights—not a candidate they would otherwise have supported—because she would have been easier for a Republican to beat. (He later renounced the idea.) Studies of open primaries have found little evidence of raiding, however. Voters usually
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FIGURE 9.1 The Impact of Crossover Voters in Closed and Open Primaries: Obama Vs. Clinton, 2008.
Note: Bars show the percentage of voters in Wisconsin’s open primary and New York’s closed primary casting a ballot for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, by party identification. The much larger proportion of independent and Republican voters in Wisconsin’s open primary gave Obama a big advantage in that state.
62 28 87 12
Source: Entrance and exit polls conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool, at http://projects. washingtonpost.com/2OOB-presidentlal-candidates/primaries/exit—polls/topics/party—identification/d/ (accessed November 13, 2011).
cross over to vote their real preferences rather than to weaken the party in whose primary they are participating.13
HOW CANDIDATES QUALIFY States also vary in the ease with which candidates can get their names on the primary ballot and in the support required to win the nomination.
How Do Candidates Get on the Ballot? In most states, candidates get on the primary ballot by filing a petition. State election laws specify how many signatures the petition has to contain—either
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—_|—_—_—___——180CHAPTER 9 How Parties Choose Candidates
a specific number or a percentage of the vote for the office in the past election.” States vary a lot in the difficulty of this step. Some have complicated rules requiring a lot of signatures, designed to favor party insiders. In some other states, a candidate needs only to appear before the clerk of elections and pay a small fee. A few states even put presidential candidates on the ballot if they are “generally recognized” to be running.
These simple rules have consequences for the parties. The easier it is for candidates to get on the ballot, the more likely it becomes that dissident, or even crackpot, candidates will enter a race and engage the party’s preferred candidates in costly primary battles. In states with easy ballot access, citizens can be treated to grudge campaigns, m' which people file to oppose the sheriff who arrested them, for instance, or who simply enjoy the thought of wreakm'g havoc m' a primary.
Runoffs: When Too Many Candidates Get on the Ballot What if the leading candidate in a primary gets less than a majority of the votes? In most states’ primaries, a plurality is enough. Almost all the southern and border states, however, hold a runoff between the top two candidates if one candidate does not win at least 50 percent of the vote. During the long period of one-party Democratic rule of the South, Democratic factionalism often produced three, four, or five serious candidates for a single office in a primary. The runoff was used to ensure a majority winner in order to present a unified face to the electorate and to ward off any challenges in the general election from blacks and other Republicans. ‘
The southern runoff primary has long been controversial. Citing m'stances m' which black candidates who received a plurality in the first primary lost to whites m' the runoff, recent studies show that runoffs disadvantage minority groups.”
WHAT PARTIES DON’T LIKE ABOUT PRIMARIES The Progressives designed the direct primary to break the party organization’s monopoly control of nominations, and, in important respects, it did. In the process, it challenged parties’ effectiveness in elections more generally.
Difficulties in Recruiting Candidates Candidate recruitment has never been an easy job, especially for the minority party. The direct primary makes the challenge even more difficult. If an ambitious candidate can challenge the party favorite in the dominant party’s primary, he or she is less likely to consider running for office under the minority party’s label. So, some argue, the minority party will find it even harder to recruit good candidates for races that it is not likely to win. Little by little, the majority party becomes the only viable means of exerting political influence, and the minority party atrophies.16
This argument should not be taken too far. One-party politics declined after primaries became more common. And even in areas dominated by one
AJ‘fl—L—WhmParties Don’t Like About Primaries l 181
party, the internal competition promoted by primaries can keep officeholders responsive to their constituents.17 Nevertheless, the fact that party organizations cannot guarantee the outcome of their own primaries means that they have less to offer the candidates they are trying to recruit.
The Risk of Unappealing Nominees Normally, only about half as many voters turn out for a primary as for a general election.18 If this smaller group of primary voters is not representative of those who will vote later, then it may select a candidate who, because of his or her issue stands or background, may not appeal to the broader turnout in the general election. Imagine the discomfort of Democratic Party leaders in southern California, for instance, when a former official of the Ku Klux Klan captured the Democratic congressional nomination in a multicandidate primary race. In particular, some primary voters might be tempted to choose a candidate who is more extreme than the party’s supporters as a whole.
Another reason why primary voters might choose a weak candidate is that in a race in which all the candidates are of the same party, voters cannot use their party identification to select candidates, and many voters will not have any other relevant information available. They may choose a candidate because his or her name is familiar or may simply vote for the first name listed on the ballot (see box “The Senate Nominee Who Thinks Out of the Box,” on page XXX). If the nominations were made by a party convention, it is often argued, convention delegates would know the prospective candidates better, so they would not be prone to these misjudgments.
The Senate Nominee Who Thinks Out of the Box To national Democratic leaders, Vic Rawl was a credible candidate for the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat in 2010. Rawl, a South Carolina local elected official and former judge, spent about a quarter of a million dollars on his primary campaign and felt confident that he’d win the nomination. Yet Rawl won only 41 percent of the primary vote. The candidate who won 59 percent was a 32-year-old political newcomer named Alvin Greene. After having paid the $10,400 filing fee required for his candidacy—an impressive sum for someone who had been unemployed for months—Greene raised no more funds and did no campaigning. (He later insisted that he had campaigned “across the state,” though he couldn’t remember where.) Greene was not an ideal candidate; he had been “involuntarily” discharged from the military and faced a felony charge of obscenity. But he had ideas; one way to create jobs in South Carolina, he suggested, would be to mass produce action figures of Greene himself in his army uniform—a proposal he said would assure voters that “I think out of the box.” (He later said he was joking.)
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( continued)
How could Greene have won the Democratic nomination? He was listed first on the ballot, and very few voters had ever heard of either candidate. After losing the general election to incumbent Republican Senator Jim DeMint, Greene shifted focus, announcing that he was “born to be president.”
Sources: Rachel Weiner, “Alvin Greene Suggests Making Dolls of Himself,” Washington Post, July 7, 2010, at http://voices.washingtonpost.corn/44/2010/07/alvin—greene-suggests-making-d.html; and Manuel Roig-Franzia, “In South Carolina, Greene Is Mystery Man Despite Winning Democratic Senate Nod,” Washington Post, June 11, 2010, at www.washingtonpost.com/wp—dyn/content/am'cle/2010/06/10/ AR2010061002499.html (both accessed November 13, 2011).
Divisive Primaries Primaries can create conflict that may reopen old party wounds or produce new ones. Activists who had campaigned for the candidate who lost the primary may sit out the general election rather than work for their party’s nominee. Supporters of Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries in 2008, m'di'gnant when she lost the nomination to Barack Obama, were less likely to vote for Obama in the general election than were those who had supported Obama in' the primaries.” If Obama’s general election race had been close, the loss of these Clinton supporters could have been decisive. Several Republican leaders had similar fears in 2010 when some GOP incumbents came under attack from primary candidates favored by the Tea Party. The charges raised by a candidate’s primary opponent are often reused by the opposition in the general election, a source of free campaign help to the other party. If a divisive primary is expensive, it may eat up much of the money the primary winner will need to run an effective campaign in the general election.
A divisive primary could be especially damaging if the losing candidate refuses to take “no” for an answer and runs in the general election anyway, as an independent or minor party candidate. The sore loser could draw enough support to destroy the chances of his or her primary rival. In the great majority of states, however, “sore loser” laws and simultaneous filing deadlines prevent primary losers from using this kind of end run to get on the general election ballot.
Despite these concerns, divisive primaries don’t always weaken a party. Running in a competitive primary contest might make the winner an even stronger candidate in the general election. In 2008, the experience Obama gained in his long nomination contest with Clinton gave him the opportunity to build and test his campaign organization prior to the general election race
PmeeChapter 11). And at times, when an incumbent candidate has shown signs of diminishing support due to scandal or change in the district, the national party has encouraged viable challengers. Although that might provoke a divisive primary, it could also produce a party nominee who is better able to hold the seat for the party in the fall.
The large numbers of safe House seats can increase the incidence of divisive primaries. After the redistricting that followed the 2000 US. Census
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created so many safe congressional seats, several ambitious candidates saw primary elections as their best and least expensive way to win a House seat. That attracted the attention, and the lavish spending, of dozens of national interest groups that wanted to change the ideological orientation of Congress by supporting a challenger who shared their views. The Democrats are famous for their internal disputes, but we can see just as many divisive primaries in the Republican Party: for instance, when candidates linked to the Christian Right challenge Republicans who are more moderate on social issues.20 Other groups, including the antitax Club for Growth, have financed primary campaigns as a way to warn other Republicans that they will face a primary opponent if they don’t take the strictest possible antitax position.21
Problems in Holding Candidates Accountable When candidates are chosen in primaries rather than by party leaders, the party loses a powerful means of holding its candidates and officeholders accountable for their actions. In England, for example, if an elected official breaks with the party on an important issue, party leaders can usually keep him or her from being renominated. If the party cannot prevent the renomination of a maverick Officeholder, then it has no way of enforcing loyalty. That, of course, is just what the Progressives had hoped. Thus, primaries have the following drawbacks.-
0 Primaries permit the nomination of candidates hostile to the party organization and leadership, opposed to the party’s platform, or out of step with the public image that party leaders want to project.
0 Primaries greatly increase campaign spending. The cost of a contested primary is almost always higher than that of a convention.
0 Primaries extend political campaigns, already longer in the United States than in other democracies, to a length that can try many voters’ patience.
THE PARTY ORGANIZATION FIGHTS BACK Parties are clearly aware of the threats posed by primary elections, but they are just as aware that a direct attempt to abolish primaries would fail. 80 party organizations have developed a range of strategies for trying to limit the damage primaries can cause. The success of these strategies varies. As we will see in Chapter 10, the presidential nomination process has often been dominated by party leaders, and some local parties have been able to influence primaries effectively. Other party organizations have neither the strength nor the will to try.
Persuading Candidates to Run (or Not to Run) The surest way to control a primary is to make sure that the candidate the party favors has no opponent. Some party organizations try to mediate among
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prospective candidates or coax an attractive but unwilling candidate to run. If they have a strong organization, they may be able to convince less desirable candidates to stay out of the race, perhaps by threatening to block a candidate’s access to campaign money. Even if they have little to offer or withhold, many party leaders have the opportunity to influence prospective candidates’ decisions; researchers have found that almost 70 percent of nonincumbent state legislative candidates discussed their plans to run with local party leaders before announcing their candidacy.22
Endorsing Candidates Some of the stronger state parties, such as those in Massachusetts and Minnesota, go beyond this informal influence and offer some form of preprimary endorsement to the candidates they prefer. Recall that in several states, at least one of the parties holds a convention to formally endorse candidates for state office. Usually, a candidate who gets a certain percentage of the convention’s vote automatically gets his or her name on the primary ballot. Endorsements are sometimes accompanied by campaign money and organizational help. In some other states, including Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan, party leaders may meet informally to endorse some candidates.
Do these endorsements influence voters? The record is mixed. Formal endorsements can often discourage other candidates from challenging the party’s choice in the primary and can keep some interest groups from flooding a race with outside money in support of nonendorsed candidates. Besides, the process of winning a formal endorsement usually involves the candidate in so many face-to-face meetings with party activists that the resulting visibility, and the resources that the endorsing party can provide, can give the endorsed candidate some vote-getting benefits. 3
On the other hand, since 1980, endorsed candidates have won only about half the primaries in which they faced competition—a big drop compared with the success rate of endorsed candidates in the 19605 and 19705.24 Some states have passed laws preventing parties from endorsing candidates in advance of the primary. When the parties are restricted to offering informal endorsements before the primary, which are not listed on the ballot, their effectiveness is even more limited. Only the most politically attentive voters are likely to know that the party is supporting a particular candidate, and they are the ones least in need of the guidance provided by a party endorsement.”
Providing Tangible Support If the party is not able to prevent a challenge to its preferred candidates, then it must fall back on more conventional approaches. It may urge party activists to help the favored candidates circulate their nominating petitions or offer party money and expertise to these candidates. It may publish ads announcing the party’s endorsements or print reminder cards that voters can take into the polling booth. On the day of the primary, the party organization may help to get party voters to the polls.
Candidates and Voters InM‘i—‘thePrimaries ’ 185
Although state and local parties vary in their efforts to influence primaries, recruiting candidates is probably the most frequent form of activity. Trying to clear the field for a favored candidate is less common. In most parts of the country, parties are only one of a number of groups encouraging men and women to run for office. Local lnisiness, professional, and labor groups,- civic associations; ethnic, racial, and religious org-anizations; and other interest groups and officeholders may also be working to recruit cimdidates. The party organizations that seem best able to control candidate recruitment are generally those that endorse and support candidates in the primary itself.
CANDIDATES AND VOTERS IN THE PRIMARIES - Two facts help make the primaries more in.-m.'n..'e.-ible for the parties: Often
only one candidate runs for each office in a primary. and the majority of voters do not vote in them. The party may be responsible for one or both of these situations. There may be no cmnpetition in a primary, for example, because of the party’s skill in persuading and dissuading potential candidates. The result is that nomination politics can. be more easily controlled by aggressive party organizations.
Many Candidates Run Without Competition All over the United States, large numbers of primary candidates win nominations without a contest. Probably the most important determinant of the competitiveness of a primary is the, party‘s prospects for victory in the general election; candidates rarely fight. for the right to. face almost certain defeat. Primaries also tend to be less competitive when an incumbent is running (unless the incumbent is already thought to be vulne able), when parties have made preprimary endorsements, and when the state‘s rules make it harder to get on the ballot.26
The power of incumbency to discourage competition is one of the many ironies of the primary. In an election in which voters cannot rely on the party label to guide their choices, name recognition and media coverage are important influences. Incumbents, of course, are more likely to have these resources than are challengers. To dislodge an incumbent. a challenger will often need large amounts of campaign money, but few challengers can raise large campaign budgets. By weakening party control of nominations through the direct primary, then, Progressive reformers may have unintentionally made it harder to defeat incumbents.
And Voters Are in Short Supply If competition is scarce in primaries, so are voters. "l‘urnout tends to be especially low in the minority party's primary, in primaries held separately from the state‘s presidential primary, and in elections in which independents, . 7 tr' . . and the other party s ulentiliers are not allowed to vote.‘ In addition to the lack of competition in many primary contests. the fact that no one is elected
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in a primary probably depresses turnout; a race for the nomination lacks the drama inherent in a general election that is followed by victorious candidates taking office.
Southern primaries in earlier years were the one great exception to the rule that few people vote in primaries. Because winning the Democratic nomination in a one—party area was tantamount to winning the office itself, competition and turnout in Democratic primaries were relatively high. When the Republican Party became more competitive in the South, however, the Democratic primaries lost their special standing. The result is that participation has declined in southern primaries. Republican primaries are attracting many more voters now because their candidates’ prospects in the general election have greatly improved, but the GOP increase has not been large enough to offset the drop in Democratic turnout.28
The primary electorate is distinctive in several ways. Many primary voters are strong party identifiers and activists, which makes them more responsive to party endorsements of certain candidates. As would be expected, people who vote in primaries have higher levels of education and political interest than nonvoters do. There is not much recent evidence that primary voters hold more extreme ideological positions than those of other party voters or are more intense in their ideological commitments.” But because primaries usually attract such a small sample of the eligible voters, they can be more easily dominated by well-financed organized interests, such as antitax or pro-gun groups, than can general elections.
Primary voters often make unexpected choices. Because primary campaigns don’t get much media coverage, the candidates are often not well known. Thus, the voter’s choice in a primary is not as well structured or predictable as that in a general election. Many voting decisions are made right in the polling booth. It is small wonder that parties are rarely confident about primary results and pollsters find it hard to predict them accurately.
THE IMPACT OF THE DIRECT PRIMARY Americans have had a century of experience with the direct primary. On balance, how has it affected us? Has the primary democratized nominations by taking them out of the hands of party leaders and giving them to voters? Has it weakened the party organizations overall? In short, have the Progressives’ hopes been realized?
Has It Made Elections More Democratic? Many more people vote in primaries than take part in conventions or caucuses,- in that sense, the process has been made more democratic. But the democratic promise of primaries is reduced by the number of unopposed candidates and the low levels of voter turnout. If voters are to have meaningful alternatives, then there must be more than one candidate for an office. If the results are to be meaningful, then people must go to the polls.
L ‘s
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v~—LTMImpact of the Direct Primary ’ 187
By its very nature, however, the primary tends to discourage participation. Would-be candidates are put off by the cost of an additional race, the difficulty of getting on the primary ballot, and the need to differentiate themselves from other candidates of their party. The lack of party cues reduces the quantity and quality of voter participation. If widespread competition for office and extensive public participation in the nominating process were goals of the primary’s architects, then they would be seriously disappointed.
The direct primary has not fully replaced party leaders in making nominations. Caucuses and conventions are still used, most visibly in presidential nominations, although they are more open than they used to be. And as we have seen, parties can influence the competition in prim'aries. If only 25 percent of registered voters go to the polls, then 13 percent Will' be enough to nominate a candidate. Parties count on the fact that a large part of that group Will be party loyalists who care about the party leaders’ recommendations. Thus, strong party organizations—those able to muster the needed voters, money, activists, and organization—can still make a diff'erence m' the results.
Even so, trying to influence primary elections is very costly and time consuming, even for strong parties. The large number of elected offices in' the United States, from senator to surveyor, forces party organizations to be selec— tive in trying to affect prirn'aries. Parties sometimes stand aside because picking a favorite in the prun’ary might produce resentment. Of course, the greatest fear of party leaders is that if' they support one candidate m' a primary and the other candidate wm's, they could lose all influence over the Wlnni'ng Officeholder.
In some ways, then, the primary has been a democratizing force. In competitive districts, especially when no incumbent is running, voters have the opportunity for choice envisioned by the reformers. In all districts, the primaries place real hmi'ts on the power of party leaders. Parties, even strong ones, can no longer award a nomination to anyone they choose. Research in some other nations shows that in comparison with systems where party leaders select the candidates, primaries can help the weaker party choose a candidate with greater voter appeal.30 And the prun'ary gives dissenters a chance to take their case to the party’s voters, so it offers them a potential veto over the party leaders’ preferences.
How Badly Has It Harmed the Parties? On the other hand, is it possible to say that the direct primary has strengthened democracy in the United States if it weakens the political parties? From the risk of divisive primary races to the added campaign funding and voter mobilization that they require, prim'aries strain party resources and create headaches for party leaders and activists. Even though some state party organizations have been able to maintain some control over their primaries by making preprimary endorsements or holding conventions to nominate some candidates, the bottom line is this: When a party organization cannot choose who will carry the party label into the general election, the party has been deprived of one of its key resources.
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The direct primary has redistributed power within the parties. The Progressives’ goal was to shift the power to nominate candidates from the party organization to the party in the electorate, but a funny thing happened along the way. Because candidates (especially incumbents) can win the party’s nomination even when they defy the party organization, the idea of party “discipline” loses credibility. Just as the direct primary undercuts the ability of the party organization to recruit candidates who share its goals and accept its discipline, it prevents the organization from disciplining partisans who already are in office. The primary, then, empowers the party’s candidates and the party in government at the expense of the party organization. This sets the United States apart from many other democracies, in which the party organization has real power over the party m‘ government.
Prim‘aries also contribute to the decentralization of power in the American parties. As long as the candidates can appeal successfully to a majority of local primary voters, they are free from the control of state or national party leaders. In all these ways, the direct prim'ary has gone beyond changing the nominatin'g process; it has helped to reshape the American parties.
Is the Primary Worth the Cost? How to nominate party candidates has been a controversial question since political parties first appeared m' the United States. It raises the fundamental question of what a political party is. Are parties only alliances of officeholders— the party m' government? That seemed to be the prevailing definition in the early years when public officials nominated their prospective colleagues in party caucuses. Should the defim'tion be expanded to m'clude the party’s activists and orgamza'tional leaders? The change from a caucus to a convention system of nominations, m' which the party orgamz'ation played its greatest role, reflects this change in the defim'tion of party.
Should we extend the idea of party well beyond the limits accepted by most other democracies and m'clude the party’s supporters in' the electorate? If so, which supporters should be included—only those willing to register formally as party loyalists or anyone who wants to vote for a party candidate in a prim'ary election? The answer has evolved over the years toward a more m'clusive definition of party. Even though the Supreme Court insists that the parties’ freedom of association is vital, the “party,” especially in states with an open or blanket primary and, in practice, in semiclosed primary states, has become so permeable that its boundaries are hard to define.
The methods we use to nominate candidates have a far-reaching un'pact. [#TheJacksonians promoted the convention system in order to gain control of
the party from congressional party leaders. Progressives used their preference for the direct primary as a weapon with which to wrest control of the party and, ultimately, the government from the party organization. Because of the importance of nominations in the political process, those who control the nominations have great influence on the political agenda and, in turn, over who gets what in the political system. The stakes in' this debate, as a result, are extremely high.
Choosing the Presidential Nominees
The countdown had begun. In just a few months, the first states would cast votes to nominate the major parties’ presidential candidates. There was not much suspense on the Democratic side. Like the great
majority of presidents, Barack Obama would not face a serious challenge for renomm'ation in 2012. But the Republican race was wide open. A dozen candidates—ranging from former governors and senators to a pizza company executive—took turns in leading the preprimary polls. The winner of a party’s presidential nomination is never an overnight success. The nominee will have traveled a long road, both literally and figuratively, to reach that coveted spot. Who would he or she have to convince, and what would it take, to gain a party’s nomination?
THE “INVISIBLE PRIMARY” Most serious presidential candidates begin several years before the election to take polls, raise money, identify active supporters in the states with early contests, and compete for the services of respected consultants (see box “How a Presidential Candidate Is Chosen” on page 182). The competition heats up during the months before the first primaries and caucuses. Journalists are competing at this time as well; they each want to be the first to predict who will win the nomination. The indicators they use are the candidates’ standing in polls and their fund-raising success. This process of early fund-raising and jockeying for media attention and public support has become so important to the eventual result that it has come to be called the invisible primary or the “money primary.” 1
Party leaders and activists and interest groups closely linked with the party are watching carefully as well. They want to determine which candidates would best serve the party’s and groups’ interests. Although party leaders have no formal power over the nominating process, they can communicate their
189
190 CHAPTER 10 Choosing the Presidential Nominees ___l_____._.___——._—._
How a Presidential Candidate Is Chosen
Step 1: Assessing Their Chances.Many people who think they might have public sup- port—governors, senators, House members, people well known in another field—consider running for president.They take private polls to see how they are viewed by prospective voters.To assess their chances of getting the resources they’d need, they contact fund-raisers and potential donors and try to get well-respected consultants to commit to their candidacy. They visit states with early primaries and caucuses to gain support from local officials. Timing: Typically, several years before the presidential election.
Step 2: Entering the Race.Those who feel they have a good chance—and some who don’t—set up exploratory committees to raise money for advertising and to fund their increasingly frequent trips to Iowa, New Hampshire, and other states with early delegate selection events. Then they formally declare their candidacy and work to get on every state ballot. Timing: Typically, at least a year before the presidential election.
Step 3: Pn'man‘es and Caucuses.Voters cast a ballot in their states for the candidate they want their party to nominate for president. Most states hold primary elections for this purpose; the rest use participatory caucuses and state conventions. Delegates are chosen to represent each state and to vote in the party’s national convention for the candidatets) selected by their state’s voters. Timing: Between January and June of each presidential election year.
Step 4: National Nominating Conventions.The delegates vote in their party’s conven- tion for the presidential candidate(s) chosen by the voters in their state’s primary or caucuses (Step 3).Then they vote for the winning candidate’s choice of a vice presidential nominee and to adopt a party platform. Timing: By tradm'on, the party that does not currently hold the presidency schedules its' con venlion first, normally in August; the other party/s convention is held soon after.
Step 5: General Election.The two major parties’ candidates run against one another. Timing: From the conventions until the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
choices to party activists by publicly endorsing particular candidates. In fact, in most recent presidential races, voters in the primaries and caucuses have nominated the consensus choice of the party’s leaders and activists.2 Especially in this early phase of the process, many partisans don’t yet know much about the prospective candidates and welcome these informal suggestions.
Candidates who fall behind in the money and endorsement chase are likely to be winnowed out of the race even before most Americans have had the chance to assess their capabilities. Early in 2011, for instance, some can- didates pulled out of the crowded Republican field, including South Dakota
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Senator John Thune and former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, because they didn’t attract enough money and activist support. On the other hand, those who raise more than expected can greatly improve their chances. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN), formerly known largely for her controversial statements against same-sex marriage and evolution, made herself into a contender by outraising better-known Republican rivals in the early months of the “invisible primary.”
The candidates who survive the “invisible primary” must then face a gauntlet of state party primaries and caucuses to win delegates who will support them at the party’s national convention. This process, which has evolved during two centuries and keeps changing, challenges the strategic capabilities of every presidential candidate.
THE ADOPTION OF PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES In the early years of presidential nominations, prospective candidates needed to impress their colleagues in Congress, because it was congressional party caucuses that made these nominations. When the parties started nominating their' presidential candidates in national conventions in the 18305, as Chapter 1 showed, the real power in the process moved to the local and state party leaders. They were the ones who chose their state’s delegates to the national convention and told those delegates which presidential candidate to support. The selection was usually done in a series of party-controlled meetings, called caucuses, held first at the local level and then in statewide conventions.
At the urging of Progressives, who aimed to weaken party leaders’ power, Florida passed the first presidential primary law in 1901; it let the voters pick the party’s candidate. Many other states followed. The parties later struck back; by 1936, only 14 states were still holding primaries to choose their delegates to the national conventions. That number had hardly changed by 1968.3 Even in many of the states that held primaries, voters could take part in only a “beauty contest” to express their preferences about presidential candidates; the delegates who went to the national convention and actually chose the candidates were selected elsewhere. A fascinating story began to unfold in 1968, however, in which the national Democratic Party took control of the delegate selection process away from the state parties and gave new life to the use of presidential primaries.
Turbulence in the Democratic Party The 1968 Democratic convention was a riotous event. Struggling with the painful issues of civil rights and American involvement in the Vietnam War, the convention nominated the party leaders’ choice, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, as the Democratic presidential candidate, even though he hadn’t run in a single state primary. Antiwar activists within the party protested that Humphrey’s nomination did not fairly reflect the views of most Democrats. To try to make peace with their critics, the national party
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leaders agreed that the next convention’s delegates would be selected in a more open and democratic manner.
A party commission chaired by liberal Senator George McGovern (and later by U.S. Representative Donald Fraser and known as the McGovern-Fraser Commzs'sion) recommended, and the Democratic National Committee and the next Democratic convention approved, major changes to increase the influence of insurgent Democrats in the 1972 presidential nominating process. One of the striking elements of this story is the remarkable ease with which state Democratic Party leaders accepted rule changes that greatly reduced their power over the awarding of the party’s greatest prize, the presidential nomination.4
In trying to comply with the complicated new McGovern-Fraser rules, many states stopped using caucus-convention systems and reinstituted primaries. The remaining caucuses were guided by strict party requirements that delegates be selected in open and well-publicized meetings. Techniques formerly used by state party organizations to control the caucuses were outlawed. In the process, not only were the delegate selection procedures radically changed but also the principle was established that the national party, not the states or the state parties, makes the rules for nominating presidential candidates.
Once the reform genie was let out of the bottle, it was hard to contain. The Democrats tinkered with their nomination rules prior to almost every election for the next 20 years. First, they used national party leverage to make the process more open and more representative of women, blacks, and young people. Then, the Democrats required the use of proportional representation, so that voter support for candidates was more faithfully represented in delegate counts. Starting in 1980, in order to bring party leaders (and their “peer review” of candidates) back into the process, many elected and party officials were guaranteed a vote at the convention as uncommitted “superdelegates” (to be discussed later in the chapter).
The result has been a stunning transformation of the process by which the Democrats select their presidential nominees. Many state legislatures responded to the new Democratic rules by changing state election laws to require primary elections in both parties. Thus, the Republicans became the unwilling beneficiaries of the Democratic reforms. Republicans have preserved their tradition of giving state parties wide latitude in developing their own rules, however, which has kept the national party out of much of the rules debate.
Presidential Primaries and Caucuses Today Each state decides whether to choose its delegates to the parties’ national conventions in a primary election or a series of caucuses. Although primaries are more common, states can change their method of selection from one presidential election to the next (see Figure 10.1).
A state holding a primary selects a date on which its eligible voters can go to a polling place (or cast a mail or absentee ballot) and choose who they’d like to be their party’s presidential nominee. The popular vote for each candidate
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Numb er
of state
s
l h" ' 196819767 1984 1992 2 2008 19681976 1984 1992 2000 2008
Democrats Republicans
FIGURE 10.1 Change in the Number of Presidential Primaries, 1968—2008. Note: The number above each bar is the number of states that held primaries to select delegates (not purely advisory primaries) in that year; inside the bar is the percentage of convention delegates elected in those primaries. All 50 states plus Washington, DC, are included, but not the territories (American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands) or Democrats Abroad. Delegate percentages include Democratic superdelegates.
Sources: For 1968—1992, Michael G. Hagen and William G. Mayer, “The Modern Politics of Presidential Selection," in William G. Mayer, ed., In Pursurt'ofthe White' House 2000 (New York: Chatham House, 2000), pp. 11 and 4344. Figures for 2000 and 2004 were kindly provided by Mayer and were calculated by the author for 2008 from data provided by the National Association of Secretaries of State. (As of this writing, not all states’ plans for 2012 were firm.)
determines how many of the state’s delegates will go to the party’s national convention supporting that candidate. The list of delegates who will represent each candidate is usually approved by the candidate or his or her agent. This all but guarantees that the delegates sent to the national convention will vote for the contender they have been instructed by voters to support, even though no laws require delegates to do 80.5
Other states use a longer delegate selection process that begins with precinct caucuses. In these meetings, party identifiers are invited to gather, often for an hour or more, to debate which candidates for president will best represent theirparty and the issues they believe in. Then they choose delegates to communicate their presidential preference to caucuses at higher levels, typi- cally at the county, congressional district, and then the state level. The state’s final delegate slate for the national convention is determined at the higher-level conventions. The first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, for example, began with precinct meetings in January 2012, but Iowa’s national convention delegates would not be chosen until the district and state conventions in April and June.
The selection of delegates in the caucus states was all but ignored by the media until 1976, when a little—known Democratic governor, Jimmy Carter,
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made himself a serious presidential candidate by campaigning intensively in Iowa and Winning an unexpectedly large number of delegates. After that time, the Iowa caucuses joined the New Hampshire primary as the first and most significant delegate selection events. Most of the media coverage of the nomina- tion race focuses on these two states’ events.6 To dilute their impact in 2008 and 2012, the two national parties allowed Nevada and South Carolina, states with large minority populations, to move up their delegate selection dates as well.
Candidates campaign differently in a caucus state than they do in a pri- mary. Because the turnout at caucuses is much smaller and consists mainly of party activists, winning caucuses requires extensive organizing to appeal to these likely caucus goers. (In contrast, media ads are better suited to reach the larger turnout of voters in a primary.) A major reason for Obama’s success in winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 was that his cam- paign understood this to a greater extent than did the campaign of his main rival, Hillary Clinton. Obama deployed large field organizations and won big victories in several caucus states early in the nominating season.7
THE RACE FOR DELEGATES:TIMING AND MOMENTUM Candidates who survive the “invisible primary” know that winning states whose contests are held early in the nominating process creates momentum. These early wins attract more media coverage for the candidate and, in turn, more name recognition among voters. The candidate looks more and more unstoppable, so it is easier to raise money, which makes later victories more likely. This happens especially in contests when winner-take-all rules are used: Because the other candidates aren’t winning any delegates, they fall further and further behind.
State legislatures also realize that holding an early primary or caucus can benefit their state. The media interest generated by an early contest brings a lot of journalists (who spend money on food, lodging, and other needs) and campaign money into the state, so the state’s concerns gain national attention. Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status, for example, means that ethanol use, favored by Iowa’s corn farmers, gets more notice from presidential candidates than it would receive otherwise. Thus, the nomination process has become highly front-loaded in recent elections, as states have moved their primaries and caucuses closer to the beginning of the nominating season (see box “Front-loading the Nomination Process” on page 187). In 2008 and 2012, front-loading nearly pushed the first delegate selection events into the “invisible primary”; Iowa and New Hampshire held their caucuses and primary in the first ten days of January, and several states advanced the dates of their primaries.
Candidates’ Strategic Choices As they approach these front-loaded primaries and caucuses, the surviving candidates continue to face crucial strategic decisions. How much effort and money should they put into each state? Which of their issue stands and personal
“Ml—TheRace for Delegates-Timing and Momentum ' 195
Front-Loading the Nomination Process In the first presidential election after the Democratic nomination reforms, the New Hampshire primary—the leadoff event of the 1972 nominating season—was held during the first week in March. By that week in 2008, the race for the Republican nomination was already over. The first presidential selection event in 2008, the Iowa caucuses, took place less than two weeks after Christmas 2007. Holiday decorations vied for space with campaign yard signs.
The nomination race has become “front-loaded.” States have increasingly pushed their delegate selection events closer to the beginning of the election year, when they would get more media coverage, bring in more money from campaign ads, and, they thought, give the state’s voters more of a chance to influence the choice of the parties’ nominees. By tradition, the first events are the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Because the prime positioning of these states—neither one very typical of either party's national constituency—had often been criticized, the DNC agreed to let Nevada and South Carolina add their delegate selection events to the early days of the 2008 primary season, and thus increase the voice of Latinos and African Americans in the nominating process. That opened the floodgates, and soon, Michigan and Florida also decided to hold their events before the DNC—authorized “window” opened on February 5.The DNC warned both states that they would lose all their convention delegates if they went ahead. Both went ahead anyway.
But the joke turned out to be on the states that rushed ahead. Although the winner—take—all Republican events produced a nominee in less than two months, Hillary Clinton staged a comeback in New Hampshire after losing the Iowa cauwses, and from that point on, neither Democratic candidate was able to open up a commanding lead in delegate votes.The proportional representation required by DNC rules, just as the party’s reformers had hoped, gave the second-ranking candidate chance after chance to remain a contender. Obama did not wrap up the nomination until early June. So in fact, in the Democratic race, the states at the end of the calendar, particularly Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and North Carolina, had enormous influence on the outcome. Even so, states held early primaries or caucuses again in 2012, though they risked penalties from the national parties for doing so.
Front-loading has several important effects on the nominating process. It forces presidential candidates to raise money very early. It gives an extra boost to the candidates who were front-runners in the “invisible primary.” The cost of a stra- tegic mistake in these early events could be very high.This “rush to judgment,” as two political scientists call it, makes the nominating system “less deliberative, less rational, less flexible and more chaotic."
Source: Quote from Andrew E. Busch and William G. Mayer, “The F rant-Loading Problem," in William G. Mayer, ed., The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), pp. 1—43; and David P. Redlawsk, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Todd Donovan, Whylowa? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), Chapter 8.
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qualities will be most persuasive to which voters? Different types of candidates face different challenges. An early front-runner, for example, normally has to demonstrate overwhelming support in the first delegate selection events, or his or her supporters’ and contributors’ confidence may be so badly shaken that the candidate's chances fade. The Democrats’ early front-runner in 2008, Hillary Clinton, based her strategy for winning the nomination on creating a sense of inevitability about her candidacy, but that strategy was undermined by her loss in the Iowa caucuses. Many other formal and informal “rules” structure the nominating process and affect campaigns’ strategies.
The Democrats’ rules differ from those of the Republicans. Recall that the Democrats’ nomination reforms require the use of proportional representation (PR), so that a candidate with significant support will not be shut out in any state. Since 1988, candidates who win at least 15 percent of the vote in primaries and caucuses get approximately the same share of the delegates as they received of the popular vote. For instance, when 36 percent of voters in the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic primary chose Barack Obama, approximately the same percentage of New Hampshire’s delegation was directed to vote for Obama in the Democratic National Convention to be the party’s nominee.
Until 2012, the Republicans had no national rules as to how to count these votes, and most states’ Republican parties used some form of a wmn‘er- take-all system: The candidate who gets the most votes in a state primary or caucus wins all or most of the state’s delegates. A winner-take-all rule makes a big difference in the results.8 For example, John McCain won 33 percent of the vote in the 2008 Missouri Republican primary, and Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney were close behind with 32 and 29 percent, respectively. Although the three candidates were separated by fewer than 22,000 votes, all 58 of the state’s convention delegates were assigned to McCain, the narrow winner. Huckabee and Romney got none. In contrast, when Obama lost a primary narrowly to Clinton, under the Democrats’ PR rules he got almost as many delegates as she did. As one reporter put it, “the Republican who kills the buffalo gets all the meat; the Democrat has to crouch around the campfire and share it with his brethren and sistren.”9 The Republicans’ winner-take-all rules allowed McCain to build a big delegate lead quickly and to clinch his party’s nomination much earlier than Obama did.10
Comparing the Clinton and Obama Strategies Taking account of these rules, presidential candidates have chosen many different types of approaches to the nomination race. Consider the contrast between the Clinton and Obama campaigns in 2008. At first, the race was seen by many as the story of an old pro, backed by her party’s most experienced advisers, who would quickly demolish an inexperienced young upstart. Except that the old pros fought among themselves rather than doing their homework, and the young upstart had advisers who studied the rules, formed a tightly disciplined team, and understood cutting-edge technologies.
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Clinton ran a relatively traditional race as the “establishment” candidate for the nomination.11 Her strategy, as we have seen, was based on the assumption that if she started early and established the belief that she was the presumptive nominee, then the contest would be over within a month of the Iowa caucuses. She expected that her experience, contacts, and support from party regulars and women’s and labor groups would smooth her way.
Obama’s organization didn’t gear up in earnest until much later: a year before the Iowa caucuses. Obama and his advisers knew that he couldn’t challenge Clinton’s great strengths—her almost—universal name recognition and her (and her husband’s, former president Bill Clinton) extensive relationships with state Democratic officials and activists. Obama’s staff had to design a different route to the nomination. Under the Democratic Party’s PR rules, a candidate could gain a big lead in delegates only by winning landslide victories. That wasn’t likely to happen in most of the large, Democratic-leaning states, where both Clinton and Obama had substantial support.
Therefore, Obama’s staff put enormous organizational effort into states where Democratic candidates didn’t usually campaign, and thus where Clinton had fewer advantages. Many of these dominantly Republican states, including Idaho, Alaska, and Kansas, held caucuses early in the nominating season. Because caucuses attract much smaller turnouts than primaries do, “mobilizing a few thousand people in a caucus state can have as much impact as getting several hundred thousand voters to the polls in a primary state.”12 Obama’s staffers recruited a lot of enthusiastic volunteers in these states, including college students and other young people, blacks, and affluent professionals.
In Idaho, for instance, the Democratic Party chair said of the Obama campaign, “It was the most impressive political organization I’ve seen in my thirty-one years here.”13 The Obama organization used ground war strategies (see Chapter 11) very successfully to increase turnout among prospective supporters. Clinton’s campaign, following the traditional plan of focusing on states with the most delegates, made no organized effort at all in the state. Obama beat Clinton in Idaho by 62 percentage points and won the great majority of its delegates.
With similar efforts, Obama won a series of landslides, and big delegate leads, in other caucus states. But Obama’s narrow win in the Iowa caucuses was his biggest prize. Not only was Iowa’s the first delegate selection event of 2008, but by winning Iowa, Obama showed that he could do well in a state with only a tiny black population and few major cities.
In the more traditional Democratic states, with their larger trove of delegates, the Obama campaign’s aim was to hold down the size of Clinton’s victories. Under the PR rules, a narrow loss would give Obama almost as many delegates as Clinton in these states. The Obama efforts were effective,- slim Clinton victories in the later primary states did not yield enough delegates to surmount the small lead that Obama had built with his landslide wins in several early caucuses.
Because Obama’s delegate lead was narrow, however, the nomination fight didn’t end until early June, when the last of the states held their primaries.
’g—WHB‘ CHAPTER 10 Choosing the Presidential Nominees
Democratic activists feared that the drawn-out nomination race would weaken Obama’s chances against McCain in the fall. Instead, the lengthy nomination contest proved to be a blessing in disguise. The Democrats were forced to organize in almost every state and thus to “field-test” local and state organizers. Large numbers of new voters registered as Democrats. The close race brought out big Democratic turnouts, which gave the Democrats expanded voter lists to use in the general election campaign.
Obama did not run a perfect campaign; in the second half of the nominating season, his prospects suffered from the kinds of verbal slips, embarrassing associations, and simple fatigue that bedevil most candidates. Nevertheless, his superior game plan—his ability to stimulate enthusiasm among volunteers, his staff’s extensive organizational work, their detailed knowledge of the Democratic Party’s nomination rules and their ability to use the rules to their advantage—made the difference. Interestingly, although Obama’s campaign was widely regarded as innovative, in fact it simply applied new technology to a time-honored approach to winning elections: contacting voters individually and bringing them to the polls.
Changes in the Schedule for 2012 After Obama beat McCain in the 2008 general election, Republican leaders began to question whether it had been Wise to reach an early decision on their own nominee. To slow down the party’s next nomination race, the Republican National Committee broke with its usual states’ rights policy and mandated that state Republican Parties holdm‘g primaries and caucuses before April 1, 2012, must use some form of PR in allocating delegates to presidential candidates. Only states holding later nominating events could use winner-take-all rules. The use of PR in the earlier contests would help candidates other than the front-runner to stay in the race longer, and the new rule would give states a reason not to front-load their caucuses and primaries. But the result was to combine front-loading with a longer nominating season.
What Is the Party’s Role? The party organiz'ations’ interests in the nominating process are not necessarily the same as those of the presidential candidates. State and local parties want a nominee who will bring voters to the polls to support the party’s candidates for state and local offices; a weak presidential candidate may hurt their chances. Party leaders also worry that a hotly contested nomination race could stimulate conflict within local and state parties, which might weaken them in the general election.
Historically, some state parties protected their interests by selecting delegates uncommitted to any candidate and then casting the state’s delegate votes as a bloc for a particular nominee. The ability to swing a bloc of delegates to a candidate could increase the state party’s influence at the convention. But the current nominating system prevents the state parties from sending an
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uncommitted delegation. In most primary states, the candidates set up their own delegate slates, so the delegates’ first loyalty is to the candidate. In caucus states, delegates committed to a candidate simply have greater appeal to caucus participants than do uncommitted delegates. Party leaders, then, have a harder time protecting the party’s interests in a nominating process that is dominated by the candidates and their supporters.
The Democrats tried to enhance the party’s role in 1984 by setting aside delegate seats at the national convention for elected and party officials. These superdelegates—all Democratic governors and members of Congress, current and former presidents and vice presidents, and all members of the Democratic National Committee—were meant to be a large, uncommitted bloc now totaling almost 20 percent of all delegates, with the party’s interests in mind. But because the nomination race concluded so quickly in most election years, superdelegates did not play an independent role in the nominating process.14
The closeness of the delegate count during the 2008 nominating season raised concerns that the superdelegates’ votes might actually decide the race. Some observers hinted darkly that this could raise suspicions about “boss rule.” The suspicions were probably unfounded. All the superdelegates are either elected officials, who have a natural interest in maintaining constituent support, or party leaders, who want to choose the nominee who is most attractive to voters. And in fact, although Clinton seemed to have greater superdelegate support early in the nominating season, Obama’s superdelegate support grew in tandem with his lead in elected delegates. In practice, then, superdelegates did not act as an independent voice for the party’s interests. The presidential candidates in 2008, as in past nominations, owed their selection largely to their own core supporters rather than to the party organization. This limits the party organization’s influence over the president once he or she has been elected.
VOTERS’ CHOICES IN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATIONS The move to primaries and participatory caucuses has increased citizen involvement in nominating a president. What determines the level of voter turnout and guides the voters’ choices in these contests?
Who Votes? Turnout varies a great deal from state to state and across different years in any one state. The Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary usually bring out a large number of voters because of the media attention to those early contests. Turnout is greater in states with a better-educated citizenry and a tradition of two-party competition—the same states where there is higher turnout in the general election. The nature of the contest matters, too. Voters are most likely to participate in early races that are closely fought and in which
—l————‘200CHAPTER 10 Choosing the Presidential Nominees
the candidates spend more money and the excitement is high, all of which increase interest in the election.”
Are Primary Voters Typical? However, turnout is lower in primary than in general elections, especially after the parties’ nominations have been largely wrapped up. Are the people who turn out to vote in presidential primaries, and who therefore choose the nomi— nees for the rest of the public, typical of other citizens? Critics of the reforms have charged that they are not and, thus, that candidates are now being selected by an unrepresentative group of citizens.
We can explore this question in several ways. When we compare presidential primary voters with nonvoters, we find that those who vote in primaries are, in fact, better educated, wealthier, and older, but then, so are general election voters. A more appropriate comparison is with party identifiers because primaries are the means by which the party electorate chooses its nominees. Using this comparison, just as is the case with primary voters more generally, voters in presidential primaries tend to be slightly older, better educated, more affluent, better integrated into their communities, somewhat more partisan and interested in politics, and less likely to be black or Hispanic, but the differences are not substantial.16
Do Voters Make Informed Choices? Another criticism of the primaries is that voters do not make very well-informed decisions. Compared with voters in the general election, primary voters seem to pay less attention to the campaign and to have less knowledge about the candidates. Especially in the early contests, voters are influenced by candidate momentum, as bandwagons form for candidates who have won unexpectedly or by a large margin. Candidates’ personal characteristics influence voters in the primaries,17 but issues often have only a minor impact. The result, so the argument goes, is a series of contests decided mainly on the basis of short-run, superficial considerations. 18
Many analysts think that this is too strong an indictment, however. They feel that voters respond with some rationality to the challenge of having to choose among several candidates in a short campaign without the powerful guidance provided by party labels.” Although it may seem unproductive to support a candidate simply because he or she has momentum, primary voters often find only minor issue differences among their party’s candidates and just want to pick the candidate with the best chance of winning the presidency. Momentum seems to matter especially when voters are being asked to sort through a pack of candidates about whom they know little20 and when there is no well-known front-runner.21 Even then, the candidates who move to the head of the pack are usually subjected to more searching evaluations, which give voters more reasons to support or oppose them. In short, even though primary voters often have less information about the candidates than do
‘——_————‘L_Onto the National Conventions ' 201
general election voters, the quality of their decisions may not differ very much from those in general elections.22
Do Primaries Produce Good Candidates? Both the current primary—dominated system and the earlier nominating system have attractive and unattractive qualities. Talented candidates have been nominated by both and so have less distinguished candidates. The older nominating system tended to favor mainstream politicians who were acceptable to the party’s leaders, including some candidates who had earned their nomination through party loyalty rather than through their personal appeal or their skills at governing. Primaries are more likely to give an advantage to candidates whose names are well known to the public and those who have the support of issue activists and people with intensely held views.23
Compared with the earlier nominating process, the current system gives presidential candidates a better chance to demonstrate their public support, raise more campaign money, and test their stamina and ability to cope with pressure. On the other hand, candidates’ performance in the primaries may not be a good indicator of their likely competence in the White House. The front-loading of the current system also increases the risk that party voters will choose a nominee too hastily and later experience buyer’s remorse.
ON TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTIONS Once the states have chosen their delegates in primaries and caucuses, the delegates go to their party’s national convention and vote for a presidential nominee. By that time, of course, the nation already knows which candidate in each party won the most delegates in the primaries and caucuses, and every convention since 1968 has nominated that winner on the first ballot. Is the national convention then just a statement of the obvious, or is there anything left for the delegates to do?
Roots of the Conventions The national party convention is an old and respected institution, but it began, at least in part, as a power grab. In 1832, the nomination of Andrew Jackson as the Democratic-Republican candidate for president was a foregone conclusion, but state political leaders wanted to keep Henry Clay, the favorite of the congressional caucus, from being nominated as vice president; they preferred Martin Van Buren. So these leaders pushed for a national convention to make the nominations. In doing so, they wrested control of the presidential selection process from congressional leaders. By the time the Republican Party emerged in 1854, the convention had become the accepted means through which major parties chose their presidential candidates. Since 1856, both major parties have held national conventions every four years.
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What Conventions Do The convention normally warms up with a keynote address by a party “star,” showcases as many of its popular older leaders and attractive new faces as possible, and reaches a dramatic peak in the nomination of the presidential and vice presidential candidates. This general format has remained basically the same for decades.
Formalizing the Presidential Nomination Before the nomination reforms of the 19703, delegates chosen by state and local party leaders would select the party’s nominee during the national convention. When the first round of balloting did not produce a majority for one candidate, intense bargaining would follow among the remaining candidates and state party leaders. The leading candidates would work to keep their own supporters while negotiating for the votes of state delegations that had come committed to other candidates. In recent years, however, one candidate has won a majority of delegate votes well before the convention starts, so only a single round of balloting has been necessary at the convention.
Approving the Vice Presidential Nominee The day after the presidential nominee is chosen, delegates vote again to select the vice presidential candidate. This, too, is ceremonial; presidential nominees choose their own running mates and conventions ratify their choice.24 In years past, the vice presidential nominee was selected by the (usually exhausted) presidential candidate at the time of the convention. Now, presidential nominees announce their “veep” choice before the convention begins, often as a means to increase their support among some group of voters.
Approving the Platform In addition to nominating candidates, the con- vention’s mam' job is to approve the party’s platform—its statement of party positions on a wide range of issues. The platform committee often asks for public comments, online as well as in hearings, long before the convention opens. The finished platform is then presented to the convention for its approval.
Because they are approved in nominating conventions whose main purpose is to choose a presidential candidate, platforms usually reflect the candidate’s views or the bargains that the candidate has been willing to make to win support or preserve party harmony.” So a platform usually lists the policy preferences of various groups in the party’s (and the candidate’s) supporting coalition. Platforms are also campaign documents, intended to help the party’s candidates win their races.
Yet platforms are much more than just a laundry list of promises. They often define the major differences between the parties, as the leading scholar of party platforms shows.26 As a result, they can provoke spirited debates at the convention because many delegates care deeply about this statement of the party’s beliefs on such issues as abortion, taxes, pollution, and American involvement in the world (see Chapter 15).
—————_—_—_——_J—Whoare the Delegates? l 203
Launching the General Election Campaign The final business of the convention is to present the party’s presidential candidate to the American public. The candidates hope that the glowing portrayal presented by the convention will produce a boost in public support, known as a “convention bounce.”
Many other events take place at the conventions as well. Lobbyists host lavish dinners and receptions to curry favor with elected officials. Even though conventions are partly funded by tax dollars, most of their costs are paid by big donors with an interest in federal policies—corporations (especially for the Republicans), unions (for the Democrats), and wealthy individuals.
WHO ARE THE DELEGATES? Convention delegates help to shape the public’s image of the two parties. Who are these delegates?
Apportioning Delegates Among the States The national parties determine how many delegates each state can send to the convention. The two parties make these choices diff'erently. The Republicans allocate delegates more equally among the states; the Democrats weigh more heavrl'y the srz'e of the state’s population and its record of support for Democratic candidates.
These formulas affect the voting strength of various groups withm' the party coalitions, as they do in the two national committees (see Chapter 4). The GOP’s decision to represent the small states more equally with the large states has advantaged its conservative wing. In contrast, by giving relatively more weight to the larger states with stronger Democratic voting traditions, the Democrats have favored the more liberal interests in their party, and in' particular, urban areas with large rru'nority populations.
How Representative Are the Delegates? The delegates to the Democratic and Republican conventions have never been a cross section of American citizens or even of that party’s voters. White males, the well educated, and the affluent have traditionally been overrepresented in conventions. Reflecting their different coalitional bases, since the 19308, Democratic delegations have had more labor union members and black Americans, and Republican conventions have drawn more Protestants and small business owners.
Demographics Since the nomination reforms, the delegates of both parties have become more representative of other citizens in some ways and less representative in others. The Democrats used affirmative action plans after 1968 to increase the presence of women, blacks, and, for a brief time, young people. At the 2008 Democratic convention, more than a third of the delegates were people of color (compared with only 6 percent of Republican delegates),
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and since 1980, the DNC has required that half of the delegates be women. The percentage of female delegates at Republican conventions has increased during this period as well, without party mandates. The DNC has urged state parties to recruit more low- and moderate-income delegates, but their lesser political involvement and the high price of attending a convention stand in the way. So conventions remain meetings of the wealthy and well educated (see Table 10.1). In 2008, for instance, 34 percent of Republican delegates and 22 percent of Democrats said they were millionaires, the largest proportion 111' over a dozen years, and most had postgraduate education.
Choosing the Presidential Nominees
27‘
TABLE 10.1
How Representative Were the 2008 Democratic and Republican Convention Delegates?
Gender Female
Race Black White Latino
Educatjm HS graduate or less Some college College grad Postgraduate
Total family income Under $50,000 Over $75,000
Religion Protestant Evangelical or born again" Catholic Jewish Other or none
Dem. Delegates
(/o°)
49
23 65 11
5 12 26 55
10 70
43 14
26 9
18
Dem. Voters
(/o°)
58
23 72
9
42 28 17 13
43 26
52 23
23 5
19
All Voters
(/o°)
54
12 83
8
37 30 21 12
39 31
55 27
24 3
17
Rep. Voters (%)
56
2 93 10
32 29 28 11
31 39
61 39
25 1
12
Rep. Delegates
(/o°)
32
93
15 31 50
66
57 33
30
out»
'Asked in a separate question, so percentages for “religion” do not add up to 100 pewem.
Source". Data on convention delegates are from flea York TimesCBS News polls taken during July 16— August 17,, 2008 of Democratic National Convention delegates (0:970) and July 23-August 26 for Republican delegates (2:854). “Voters” are all registered voters in nauonw‘ide polls (11:1014) taken by the same polling organization during August 15—20, 2008.
_*———_—_4l_—Whoare the Delegates? I 205
Political Experience We might assume that delegates would be recidivists, making return appearances at convention after convention. That has not been the case. After the reforms, the percentage of convention first timers jumped to about 80 percent. Even after the Democrats began granting convention seats to politically experienced superdelegates, most of the delegates were newcomers. However, the great majority are long—time party activists. In 2008, most of a random sample of delegates reported that they had been active in their party for at least 20 years, and a majority said they currently hold party office.
Issues Convention delegates are more extreme in their views and more aware of issues than most other voters are. In 2008, Democratic delegates were slightly more likely to call themselves very liberal (19 percent) than were Democratic voters (15 percent) and about twice as likely to consider themselves liberal or very liberal as was the average voter. Forty percent of Republican delegates called themselves very conservative, compared with 30 percent of GOP voters and only 15 percent of all voters. Delegates’ views, then, are very polarized by party.
The distance between delegates and their party’s voters varies from issue to issue. As Table 10.2 shows, although Democratic delegates in 2008 were more
TABLE 10.2
Views on Issues: Comparing Delegates and Voters in 2008
Dem. Dem. All Rep. Rep. Delegates Voters Voters Voters Delegates
(/o°) (/o°) (/o°) (/o°) (/o°) 90 67 40 7Providing health care 94
coverage for all Americans is more important than holding down taxes
Abortion should be permitted in all cases
33 26 1358
5836 49 64Illegal immigration is 15 a very serious problem for the country now
9134 47 62Many of the tax cuts Congress passed in 2001 should be made permanent
United States did the right thing in taking military action against Iraq
8014 37 70
(continued)
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TABLE 10.2 (CONTINUED)
Dem. Dem. All Rep. Rep. Delegates Voters Voters Voters Delegates
(/o°) (/o°) (/°o) (/o°) (/o°) 25 30 21 9 3
Environmental protection should be a higher priority for government than finding new energy sources
Gay couples should be allowed to legally marry
55 49 34 11
Gun control laws should be more strict
62 70 52 32
Note: Figures are the percentage of each group who agreed with the statement.
Source: Data on convention delegates are from New York Times/C BS News polls taken during July 16—August 17, 2008 of Democratic National Convention delegates (n=970) and July 23—August 26 for Republican delegates (n=854). “Voters” are all registered voters in nationwide polls (n=1014) taken by the same polling organization during August 15—20, 2008.
liberal than most voters on several key issues, they came closest to the views of Democratic voters (and all voters) in favoring health care coverage for all Americans, environmental protection, and gun control. Republican delegates most closely resembled other Republicans, as well as the average voter, in their views on the importance of illegal immigration, but scored well to the right on other questions. Democratic and Republican delegates differed most from one another on health care coverage and the Bush tax cuts. So, although supporters of the McGovern-Fraser reforms had hoped that the new system would better represent the views of most party identifiers than the old system did, the reforms have not made much difference in that regard.28 The real effect of the reforms has been to link the selection of delegates more closely to candidate preferences. As a result, when an issue-oriented candidate does well in the primaries and caucuses, more issue—oriented activists become conven— tion delegates. That may not make the conventions more representative of the party in the electorate, but it usually offers clearer choices to voters.
Amateurs or Professionals? The reforms were also expected to result in delegates with a different approach to politics. Using the terms described in Chapter 5, some convention delegates can be described as amateurs, others as professionals. Amateurs are more attracted by issues, more insistent on internal party democracy, and less willing to compromise. Professionals, in contrast, are more likely to have a long-term commitment to the party and to be more willing to compromise on issues in order to win the general election.
———_——————_L_HowMedia Cover Conventions l 207
There is some evidence that the Democratic Party’s reforms had, as intended, reduced the presence of party professionals between the 1968 and the 1972 conventions.29 As we have seen, however, the party later moved to reverse this trend by adding superdelegates. Research shows that both before and after the reforms, delegates have remained strongly committed to the parties and their goals.“”0 It may be that for both professionals and amateurs, involvement in this very public party pageant strengthens delegates’ commitment to the party’s aims.
Who Controls the Delegates? It would not matter how representative delegates are if they act as pawns of powerful party leaders. In fact, for most of the history of party conventions, that is exactly how the state delegations behaved. But state party leaders no longer control their state delegations. When the Demo- crats eliminated their' long-standing unit rule in 196 8, through which a majority of a state delegation could throw all the delegation’s votes to one candidate, they removed a powerful instrument of leadership control. Perhaps the most powerful force preventing state party leaders from controlling the conventions is the fact that the delegates in both parties now come to the conventions already committed to a candidate. That makes them unavailable for “delivery” by party leaders. If anyone controls the modern conventions, then, it is the party’s prospective nominee for president, not leaders of the state parties.
HOW MEDIA COVER CONVENTIONS In addition to all these changes in the convention’s delegates and power centers, media coverage of conventions has changed significantly. On one hand, conventions have been reshaped and rescheduled to meet the media’s needs.3'1 On the other hand, ironically, media attention to the conventions has declined sharply in recent years.
Beginning with the first televised national party conventions in 1948, TV journalists and politicians found ways to serve one another’s interests. In the early days of television before the convenience of videotape, networks were desperate for content with which to fill broadcast time, so they covered the party conventions live, from beginning to end. The convention became a major story, like the Olympics, through which TV news could demonstrate its skill and provide a public service. Reporters swarmed through the convention halls, covering the strategic moves of major candidates, the actions of powerful party leaders, and the reactions of individual delegates.
For party leaders, television coverage offered a priceless opportunity to reach voters and to launch the presidential campaign with maximum impact. So they reshaped the convention into a performance intended as much for the national television audience as for the delegates. Party officials gave key speaking roles to telegenic candidates, speeded up the proceedings, and moved the most dramatic convention business into prime-time hours. More and more, the aim of the convention shifted from the conduct of party business to the wooing of voters.
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These two sets of goals, however—the networks’ interest in a good story and the parties’ interest in attracting supporters—increasingly began to conflict. Once the nomination reforms took effect, and the choice of the parties’ presidential candidates was settled before the convention started, conventions lost most of their suspense. To hold viewers, media searched the conventions for new sources of excitement, such as potential conflicts. But party leaders had no interest in making their disputes public; that would interfere with the positive message they were trying to convey. As the conventions’ audience appeal continued to decline, the major networks reduced their cover- age markedly. Although convention junkies still can turn to cable TV to watch the entire convention, coverage on ABC, CBS, and NBC decreased from about 60 hours per convention in 1952 to a grand total of 4 hours in 2008.
DO CONVENTIONS STILL HAVE A PURPOSE? Since the nomination reforms, then, conventions have greatly changed. They are no longer the occasions when the major parties actually select their presidential nominees. That happens in the primaries and caucuses; the conventions simply ratify the results. The national conventions have lost much of their deliberative character and independence.
In another way, however, the conventions have become more significant. Because candidates must mobilize groups of activists and voters in order to wm' primaries and caucuses and because many of these groups are concerned with particular policies, the nomination reforms have made issues all the more important in convention politics. Many delegates arrive at the convention committed not only to a candidate but also to a cause. The pressures exerted by Christian conservatives at recent Republican conventions to preserve the party’s stated opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion are a good illustration.
In spite of all these changes—or perhaps because of them—the national conventions are living symbols of the national parties. They provide an occasion for rediscovering common interests and for celebrating the party’s heroes. They motivate state and local party candidates, energize party workers, and launch presidential campaigns. They may not compete with American Idol for ratings, but they do remind party activists and identifiers why the party matters to them.
SHOULD WE REFORM THE REFORMS? The increasing use of primaries in the presidential nominating system was part of a time—honored pattern in American politics: efforts by reformers to break up concentrations of party power. As we have seen, however, the reforms have had many unintended effects as well. Primaries can create internal divi- sions in party organizations that may not heal in time for the general election. The low turnouts in many primaries and caucuses may increase the influence
r... .
—_—————-——_—_1_ShouldWe Reform the Reforms? l 209
of well—organized groups on the ideological extremes: the right wing of the Republican Party and the left wing of the Democrats. The results of a few early contests in states not very representative of the nation have a disproportionate effect on the national outcome.32 In most years, by the time most voters know enough about the candidates to make an informed choice, the nominees have already been chosen. And candidates must invest such an enormous amount of time, energy, and money in the nomination process that the ultimate winner can arrive at the party convention personally and financially exhausted.
There is no going back to the old system, however. As the reformers charged, it was controlled by state and local party leaders who were often out of touch with the electorate. It kept many party voters and even party activists out of the crucial first step in picking a president. It violated the desire for a more open, democratic politics, and it did not help presidential candidates learn how to prepare for the most powerful leadership job in the world.33
What Could Be Done? Could the reforms’ drawbacks be fixed by more reforms.D34 Both parties feel some pressure to do just that. Among Democratic delegates in 2008, only 21 percent claimed to be “very satisfied” with the party’s nominating system as a whole.
One possible reform would be to create regional nominating events, in which the states in a given region would all schedule their primaries on the same day. That might bring more coherence to the welter of state contests by limiting the number of dates on which they could be held and reducing the enormous strain on the candidates. For a time in the late 19808 and 19905, most southern states chose to hold their primaries early in March on a single day, referred to as Super Tuesday. Their aim was to draw greater attention to southern concerns and to encourage the nomination of moderate candidates acceptable to the South.
A system of regional primaries has drawbacks, however. Which region would go first? Even if the order were rotated from one election to the next, the first region to vote, with its peculiarities and specific concerns, would disproportionately influence the nominations. Regional primaries could still produce all the complaints listed above, from internal party divisions to low turnouts.
Another option is to hold a national primary in which all the states’ primaries and caucuses take place on a single day. The United States is almost halfway there; in 2008, about half of the states chose to hold their delegate selection events on Super Tuesday, February 5. But a mega-primary has mega-drawbacks; it advantages the candidates with the most money and the greatest name recognition, those capable of campaigning in dozens of states at the same time, and reduces the roles of the party organizations and the states in the process. As is so often the case in politics, there is no “right” answer here—just a series of options, each of which favors some kinds of candidates and interests and disadvantages others.