Primaries might not be best way to choose nominees

An article in the December issue of The Atlantic addresses an issue that has disturbed me for some time: Did we go too far in the 1970s in removing political “bosses” from the presidential nomination process?

The tumultuous party nominating conventions of the late 1960s — recall the image of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daily cheering on police violence in the streets as Democratic Party delegates snubbed candidates not endorsed by the party establishment — and the post-Watergate campaign reforms of the 1970s fueled the shift in nomination process from collective decisions made by faithful party delegates in mammoth national conventions to a universal primary system, in which millions of individual voters make the decision once reserved for or controlled by party officials with years of experience in politics.

The “democratization” of presidential nominations seemed like a great idea at the time. The entire electorate would have a role in choosing nominees. Instead of safe, “establishment” candidates who have earned their promotion to the top job after decades of service to the public and the party, the primary system gave us unconventional candidates such as Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. Voters got to have their say, but what they often said was, “I like the cute one with a sense of humor.” Instead of a party convention, Democrats and Republicans sponsored two “beauty contests” of potential nominees.

Eventually, this led America to Donald Trump, a presidential nominee with no experience in government and no interest in learning about how the government works, even as he practices diplomacy by insult and policy making by impulsive tweets. It also led to useless enterprises such as this year’s Democratic candidate debates, featuring two dozen candidates, many of whom get few chances to speak.

The 2016 presidential campaign saw a Republican nominee who was not a Republican in the usual sense, and a Democratic candidate who did not refer to himself as a Democrat at all and had not been registered as one. This year’s candidate debates include a “spiritual adviser” with no experience in government and no clear policies.

Reforms that made presidential primary results the standard for nominating a president have not lived up to their promises. We all wanted to put an end to the “smoke-filled rooms” where presidential nominations were “really made” by cigar-chomping big-city party bosses, but we weren’t aiming for the circus we got.

We (I thought primaries would be a great way to select a presidential nominee) never thought the new process would turn into such a shipwreck. Without some “party bosses” to ride herd on candidates, we have ended up with candidates who don’t know what they’re getting into and voters who succumb to glitz, glib comments and greatly exaggerated promises.

In the Atlantic article, Jonathan Rauch and Ray La Raja suggest a new reform: allow veteran party officials (members of Congress, elected state officers, state party chairmen, etc.) to serve as appraisers of potential nominees and avoid embarrassing (and dangerous) surprises. These party regulars, with deep knowledge of governing and party principles, would serve as the “adults in the room” who can screen out the unqualified, the dangerously unhinged, the inexperienced and those untested or unsuccessful at lower levels.

Turning away from the exciting state primaries and caucuses will not be an easy sale, but a comparison of the nominees selected in traditional convention nominations and in primaries might sway opinion. Smoke-filled rooms gave America Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Woodrow Wilson, and Harry Truman. The only major mistakes in this system, arguably, were Warren Harding and Richard Nixon. That’s not a bad record.

Presidential election system is broken

It's no longer news that something like 60% of the nation's voters have negative views of both major party presidential nominees. Never before have two presidential candidates gone into an election disliked by so many voters.

We have to ask: Is the American presidential nomination process all wrong? Reforms over the last 50 years have given individual voters more influence in the nomination process. Nominees are selected now primarily by voters in the party primaries. Primary votes are translated into delegates, and delegates affirm the primary results at the party conventions. Before these reforms, party nominees were elected primarily by political power brokers in each party and by delegates to local, state and national party conventions. Reforms have shifted power from the "party bosses" to the broader electorate.

See how well that's worked out?

The primary selection system looks good on paper, but there are some flaws. State primaries that stretch across six months or more are influenced by "momentum" — candidates who do well in the early voting gain an advantage in publicity and in fundraising. Those who falter early usually drop out. But the earliest primaries are held in smaller, less diverse states, such as New Hampshire and South Carolina. States that are more representative of the nation's demographics as a whole — California, Texas and others — hold primaries later, oftentimes after the nomination has been settled. A single nationwide primary or a series of closely scheduled regional primaries might give truly national candidates a better chance.

Obscene amounts of money are poured into the primaries, to the point that the contests are often more about fundraising ability than about issues or governance. Reducing the influence and mandate of fundraising would make the primaries more about issues and governing ability than about money. Curtailing money's primacy might take a constitutional amendment, or maybe just a limit on presidential campaigning before a certain date, say May 31 of an election year. I'm reminded that John F. Kennedy did not announce his candidacy until January 1960. Today's presidential candidates are announcing at least a year earlier.

The news media and the modern 24-7 news cycle are partly to blame for the mess we've made of the most important decisions in American politics. Entertainment-based political coverage ignores difficult issues and focuses instead on the sensational, the personal and the provocative. This year's presidential season has focused on hand size, marital fidelity, emails and name-calling, all abetted by news media that blare the irrelevant while ignoring the important. Broadcast media, which are licensed by the government to use the public airwaves, should lose their licenses for failure to make political coverage about issues rather than sensationalism. Print media should use its First Amendment protections to deliver information that is truly important, not just spectacular. Broadcast licenses and the First Amendment are public trusts, which carry an obligation to deliver important information to the public.

Finally, it is the responsibility of the voters to reject the hype and the focus on things that don't matter and demand more coverage of what does matter. But like the high schoolers who can name all the winners of the Grammy awards but cannot name their state's governor or senators, too many voters don't have the knowledge to discern what is important.

Presidential primaries can't get much earlier

SOMEDAY SOON — The Florida Republican Party announced today that it will hold its presidential primary tomorrow. In response, New Hampshire, announced it was moving its presidential primary, traditionally the first in the nation, to yesterday.

These announcements follow a string of escalations in the Great Presidential Primary Wars that began when Florida announced it would hold its presidential primary in January. Refusing to be relegated to second place in the presidential sweepstakes, New Hampshire promptly moved its primary to December.

But the Christmas Primary was short-lived, when Florida proclaimed its primary day to be the Day after Thanksgiving. Then New Hampshire retaliated by declaring Halloween its primary day, despite a chorus of "how appropriate!" from cynical Democrats. Ultimately, that led to today's twin announcements of the Tomorrow Primary and the Yesterday Primary.

Asked how voters were supposed to arrange to vote tomorrow, much less yesterday, one New Hampshire party spokesman admitted, on condition of anonymity, "It's not the vote we're after. We just want the over-the-top publicity for an event that involves only a minuscule portion of the national electorate."