Conor here: The following piece from a professor of government at Hamilton College is an argument for depriving voters of the right to decide who is the Democratic candidate for president. Why not? The Democratic Party has already put its thumbs heavily on the scale in at least the last few primaries. If they do anyway, why not just officially go back to the good old days of party leaders meeting and deciding on a candidate? Running all the dog-and-pony games of the primaries must really annoy them anyway, and I suspect that most conservative Democrats would have no problem with the “experts” choosing the candidate who best serves their interests. people category of donors. As the author of this piece writes, it can be “a way to avoid problems” – problems caused by ignorant voters.
The author here also mentions when party leaders withdrew his nomination from Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver in 1952 because he “might split key Democratic districts. The management of the team also knew that Kefauver had problems with alcohol and sleeping with someone outside of marriage.” Perhaps some readers who are more familiar with this episode may comment, but I was under the impression that a large part of the problem with Kefauver was his attempts to look at organized crime and their connections to The Blob and politicians, and hated depending on it.
By Philip Klinkner, James S. Sherman Professor of Government at Hamilton College. Originally published on The Conversation.
Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the nomination, it will finally be up to the delegates of the Democratic National Convention to officially choose their party’s new nominee. This will be the first time in more than 50 years that a major party nominee has been chosen without the democratic process of primaries and caucuses.
Many Democrats had begun discussing how to replace Biden. They are worried that having convention delegates, many of whom were initially committed to Biden, choose the nominee will appear undemocratic and illegitimate.
The Republican House Speaker said returning the meeting to Biden’s place would be “improper” and “illegal.” Some have created a picture of the return of the “room full of smoke.” The term was coined in 1920 when the leaders of the Republican party met in secret at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago and agreed to nominate Warren G. Harding, a secretive and unknown US senator from Ohio, for president. He won that year, he became a bad president.
The tradition of choosing a nominee in primaries and caucuses — not through the so-called “convention system” — is new. In 1968, after President Lyndon B. Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election, his running mate, Hubert Humphrey, was able to secure the Democratic nomination despite not entering any primaries or caucuses. Humphrey won because he had the support of party leaders such as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, and these party leaders controlled the majority of delegates.
Many Democrats saw this system as undemocratic, so the party instituted a series of reforms that opened up the system by requiring delegates to be elected in primaries or caucuses that gave ordinary party members the opportunity to do so. The Republican Party quickly followed suit, and since 1972 both parties have nominated candidates this way.
Some Democrats are concerned that the new nominee, elected at the convention, will be, like Humphrey, illegitimate because he will have received his nomination without the input of Democratic voters across the country.
In response, they proposed a so-called “blitz primary” where Democratic voters will decide on a candidate after a series of televised town halls with celebrities such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey. and Taylor Swift.
From the point of view of an academic who studies political parties and elections, this proposal looks like a dream as there is no way to set up an effective electoral process in such a short period of time. The normal process for primaries and caucuses takes months, if not years, of preparation.
Another Good Choice in the Past
While many associate the convention system with less than impressive nominees, like Harding, the record isn’t that bad.
At the very first convention, held by the National Republicans – the ancestors of today’s Republican Party – party leaders and insiders nominated Henry Clay for president. Although Clay lost to Andrew Jackson the following year, he is considered one of the greatest politicians of the 19th century.
The congressional agenda in both parties went on to nominate Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, all of whom were elected president. Of course, conventions also appointed minors like Horatio Seymour, Alton Parker and John W. Davis.
But who can say that the current system has done the best to produce candidates?
Yes, there are Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, but there have also been unsuccessful candidates like George McGovern, and weak presidents like Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.
Moreover, if the old system had been in place this year, there is a good chance that the Democrats would have avoided the predicament they are in.
How to Avoid the Problem
To the extent that Democratic Party leaders are aware of Biden’s decline, they may have been able to free him to elect a better candidate – if they had control of the nomination process. In fact, party leaders in decades past often knew more about candidates than the public at large and could exercise veto power over anyone they thought was at risk.
For example, in 1952, US Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee entered the Democratic National Convention as the clear favorite in the party polls. He also won many primaries and had many delegates.
Party leaders, however, were highly skeptical of Kefauver as they viewed him as a renegade figure who could split key Democratic districts. Club executives also knew that Kefauver had problems with alcohol and extramarital affairs.
Because of this, party leaders rallied around Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, who was not running for office before the convention began. Stevenson ran a losing but respectable race against the more popular and possibly unbeatable Dwight D. Eisenhower. In addition, Stevenson’s eloquence and wisdom inspired a generation of Democratic Party activists. Not a bad choice for a last minute conference.
With Biden’s withdrawal, it remains to be seen whether the new Democratic nominee will be a strong candidate or, if elected, a good president. But there is no reason to think that this year’s unusual selection process will affect those results.
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