Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 14:11:57 -0600
From: John F. Reynolds <jreynold@lonestar.jpl.utsa.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list H-POL <H-POL@KSUVM.BITNET>
Subject: Slouching Toward a Nationwide Primary [Nom. Seminar]
====================================
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATING PROCESS:
SLOUCHING TOWARD A NATIONWIDE PRIMARY
Howard L. Reiter
The University of Connecticut
The front-loading of the calendar for the presidential primaries and
caucuses this year is a reminder of the evolutionary nature of the presidential
nominating process, subject not only to abrupt changes brought about by
sweeping reforms like those of the McGovern-Fraser Commission. In examining
the major changes in that process over the past century, it is difficult not to
conclude that the changes generally point in the same direction -- to a
nationwide primary on a single day. This is not to predict that the adoption of
such a procedure is imminent, or even in the foreseeable future, although such
adoption would not surprise the author. Rather, the inner logic of the
development of our nominating process seems to imply the emergence of such a
ystem.
Indeed, it is remarkable to note how close we are to this procedure
already, as the following tables illustrate -- the proportion of delegates selec
tedin primaries is approaching 100 percent. This year, moreover, marks the shortest
and most front-loaded process since the proliferation of primaries began in 1972.
Table 1. Percentage of delegates chosen in primaries, 1968-1996.
[Source: Stephen J. Wayne, The Road to the White House 1996 (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1996), p. 11.]
Democrats Republicans
1968 37.5 34.3
1972 60.5 52.7
1976 72.6 67.9
1980 74.7 74.3
1984 62.9 68.2
1988 66.6 76.9
1992 78.8 80.4
1996 83.5 85.9
Table 2. Number of days after the first primary or caucus when half or two-
thirds of the delegates were selected, contested nominations only, 1972,-1996.
[Source: author, from _Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports_, and, for 1996,
_The New York Times_, February 11, 1996.]
Democrats Republicans
Half Two-thirds Half Two-thirds
1972 77 91 -- --
1976 115 130 123 130
1980 106 134 106 127
1984 50 78 -- --
1988 58 72 72 86
1992 57 78 78 106
1996 -- -- 42 67
Over the long run, these trends are not simply a question of party leaders
losing their power to the party masses. In this regard, it is helpful to recall
that exactly one hundred years ago, the Democrats experienced the takeover of
their organization in most states by the forces of free silver, in a coup that
foreshadowed the Barry Goldwater (1964) and George McGovern (1972) nominations
many decades later. On the Republican side, William McKinley won nomination
over the opposition of such powerful eastern leaders as William E. Chandler,
Thomas C. Platt, Matthew Quay and Thomas B. Reed, with the slogan "the people
against the bosses," which presaged the uneasy relationship between later party
leaders and such nominees as Wendell Willkie, John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.
Such examples should caution us against stereotyping the past as a period when
party leaders exercised total control over nominations.
Instead, we can enumerate two characteristics of a nationwide primary, and
see how all the significant changes in the nominating process during the
twentieth century have moved closer to them: (1) plebiscitarianism (one partisan,
one vote), and (2) nationalization (national control and/or coordination).
To explore the reasons for these trends would take us rather far afield,
but suffice it to note that they are consistent with a variety of institutional
changes across the American political system in the twentieth century, from
legislative reapportionment to the increase in the power of the federal
government. As necessarily highly visible institutions, parties might be
considered to be especially prone to such forces.
At the outset of the century, states were essentially autonomous in
determining their procedures for selecting national convention delegates, and
those delegates were apportioned according to the states' electoral votes. In the
light of the general argument here, it is significant that the advent of the first
presidential primaries in 1904 almost coincided with the adoption of bonus votes
the Republicans after their disastrous 1912 convention. Both reforms were
a move in the direction of nominations being decided on a plebiscitary basis.
While the efficacy of the primaries of this period is problematic, they were at
least symbolic of involvement of partisans as individuals rather than as members
of state parties. Bonus votes were a more substantive step in the direction of
representing individuals rather than states at national conventions.
Not only was the adoption of bonus votes a move toward plebiscitarianism,
but in a real sense it was a gesture toward nationalization as well. In the 39th
Federalist, James Madison characterized the House of Representatives as a
national institution, the Senate as federal; proportional representation of
populations in the House made each citizen part of a nation, while equal
representation of states in the Senate made the states intermediaries between the
people and the federal government. Much the same can be said regarding the
difference between apportionment based partially on bonus votes, and that solely
utilizing electoral votes.
The chief reform of the next several decades was the Democrates' abolition
of the two-thirds rule in 1936. This had an immediate and permanent effect:
four of the five immediately preceding conventions that did not renominate an
incumbent lasted for more than one ballot; only one Democratic convention since
then (that of 1952) has done so. It also was, of course, a giant step in the
direction of plebiscitatianism, particularly in those states with primaries. In the
debate in the convention's rules committee, U.S. Representative E.E. Cox of
Georgia accused proponents of majority rule of promulgating "a march upon the
smaller states to break down and utterly destroy their influence in the councils
of the party," and warned that they would soon demand that states be
represented proportionally in the U.S. Senate.
For the Democrats, abolition of the two-thirds rule was followed soon by
the establishment of bonus votes, seen as a sop to the south for acceding to the
loss of the two-thirds rule -- as with the Republicans, a plebiscitarian as well
as a nationalizing development.
Starting with the loyalty oath controversies of the 1950s, and continuing
with the battles over racial discrimination in the 1960s, the Democrats began to
assert national standards over states' delegations. During this period, the
advent of television brought far-reaching changes to the political process. The
sense that it brought to the delegates that "the whole world is watching" may
have had a subtle influence on convention managers not to do anything that
smacked unfair treatment of delegates; hence the Eisenhower campaign's use of
"fair play" rhetoric in the first convention to be widely televised (1952), and the
impetus for reform after the Democratic convention of 1968. (In an earlier era,
the fact that a radio audience could enjoy every embarrassing moment of the
Democrats' 103-ballot 1924 convention -- "Alabama casts 24 votes for Oscar W.
Underwood" and nauseam -- may have helped doom the party's two-thirds rule.)
Of course, the most comprehensive set of changes in the rules was that of
the McGovern-Fraser and O'Hara commissions that perhaps best remembered for
two unintended consequences, the dramatic increase in the use of primaries, and
the bringing along of the Republicans in the wake of these reforms, both trends
illustrated in Table 1. In the context of the argument presented here, the
reforms are noteworthy because they advanced the trends of plebiscitarianism
and nationalization. If we group the reforms into the categories of procedural
fairness (no proxy votes, publication of the rules in advance, etc.), affirmative
action, and proportional representation of candidates' supporters, we can see that
all were intended to allow each Democrat's voice to carry equal weight in the
deliberations of the presidential contest. For the 1972 convention, this attempt
to ensure that nobody be unfairly advantaged produced the randomization of the
order of states on the roll call votes; no more would Alabamians enjoy the benef it
f voting first, nor would the Democrats of Wyoming be able to see how the
balloting was going before declaring themselves!
Beyond this major movement toward plebiscitarianism, the reforms gave the
national party unprecedented powers to decide the legitimacy of state party
ules, most spectacularly illustrated by the expulsion of Chicago's Mayor Richard
Daley from the 1972 convention. In the same period, the reinvigoration of the
Republican National Committee under the leadership of Chairman Bill Brock pushed
that party in a more gingerly fashion in the direction of nationalization; surely
the House Republican candidates' emphasis on the Contract with America in 1994
was an attempt to nationalize the party's appeal in an off-year.
Since 1972, we have seen a growth in the number of primaries and a
shortening of the process, as the two tables above show. The latter trend is in
large part fueled by resentment over the favored status of the participants in
the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, as states leapfrog over each other
to be early participants. No doubt the plebiscitary urge is especially important
here -- Why should the voters of two small states have so much clout? The
logical extension of this is to have all states vote on the same day, or at least
to let Iowa and New Hampshire have their moment in the sun, and then let
everyone else vote a week after New Hampshire. In the past twenty years, the
Republicans have cut by two-thirds the time in which a majority of delegates are
hosen.
This essay has not approached the question of whether a single-day,
national primary would be an improvement over the current system. Suffice it
to note that it would likely favor prominent early front-runners (Dole),
candidates with appeal to party constituencies nationally distributed (Buchanan),
and those with ample campaign chests (Forbes). It would likely eliminate from
consideration the Eugene McCarthys and Gary Harts, lesser-known candidates who
could parlay an early respectable showing into a formidable campaign by
gradually building popular and financial support. Whether the republic would
benefit or not, this is the system toward which we are inexorably moving.
Bibliography
1) William G. Carleton, "The Revolution in the Presidential
Nominating Convention," _Political Science Quarterly_ LXXII
(June 1957)
2) M. Margaret Conway, "Republican Political Party Nationalization,
Campaign Activities, and Their Implications for the Party
System," _Publius_ XIII (Winter 1983), 1-17
3) Paul T. David, Ralph M. Goldman, and Richard C. Bain, _The
Politics of National Party Conventions_ (Washington: Brookings,
1960)
4) Abraham Holtzman, "Party Responsibility and Loyalty," _Journal
of Politics_ XXII (August 1960), 485-501
5) Nelson W. Polsby, _Consequences of Party Reform_ (New York:
Oxford, 1983)
6) Howard L. Reiter, _Selecting the President_ (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania, 1985)
Others:
1) James W. Ceaser, _Presidential Selection_ (Princeton: Princeton,
1979)
2) William Crotty, _Party Reform_ (New York: Longman, 1983)
3) Byron E. Shafer, _Quiet Revolution_ (New York: Russell Sage,
1983)