Amidst the ongoing controversies surrounding the Republican primary calendar — with Florida moving its contest to late January, and triggering a move up by the officially sanctioned early states — some people have probably wondered if it might be possible to come up with better ways to pick a presidential nominee. But is there, really?
Already every cycle, the parties review the rules of their primary processes, and often make small or large adjustments. But can they produce major change?
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner told TPM: “Well, would another commission be successful, when we’ve had a commission almost every four years going back for 30 years?” (For the history of the New Hampshire primary, see our post in which we interviewed Gardner.)
And for his own part, Florida GOP chair Lenny Curry told TPM that the state is not trying to challenge New Hampshire’s spot as the first primary. “No way,” said Curry, explaining that “there’s a tradition there, there’s a history there. It’s important, and it matters, and it works. So by no means do we want to — that was never the intent.”
So what does Florida want?
“We would like to see Florida to remain an early state that goes by itself. We are too big, and too important,” said Curry. “And we can debate how we get there, but what is important is we get there, and we get there consistently, and we’re not having a debate every four years as to why Florida should be there early, and by itself.”
With all that in mind, it is worth remembering just how the modern primary system developed — in a process that lasted decades, before it became formalized about 40 years ago. And counter-intuitively, many of the same forces that shaped the process becoming what it is today, may also be the same ones that could prevent a truly centralized reform.
In 1969, following the many controversies that beset the 1968 Democratic convention — in which Vice President Hubert Humphrey was nominated without winning any primaries, on the basis of victories in caucuses and state party conventions, which in those days were sparsely attended and dominated by party insiders — the Dems convened a special commission to overhaul and reform primary and caucus process, and open up participation. The commission was co-chaired by Sen. George McGovern (D-SD), who went on to become the party’s nominee for president in 1972, and Rep. Donald Fraser (D-MN).
It was from that commission that Democrats formalized many rules that people take for granted today: More widespread participation in primaries, caucuses that are adequately advertised and open to the public, proportional representation of delegates, and many more. And over the years, the Republicans copied many of those same principles, fostering the competitive national primary races we see today.
“There weren’t any young people involved, they were out in the streets protesting,” McGovern said of the 1968 convention, in an interview with TPM. “There were very few women inside the convention, that was the basic problem. And under that circumstance, there were other abuses. Sometimes caucuses were held without notifying anybody, and the only people that knew about them were a few insiders.”
“I don’t blame Humphrey, either,” McGovern added. “He was operating as we had always operated, by getting the endorsements of the mayors in large cities, and the heads of the party in various states, members of Congress, governors. And that comprised the process of selecting the nominee up until ’69. I don’t blame Humphrey for exploiting it, because that’s the way it was done.”
However, one thing that the McGovern-Fraser committee did not address, was the structure of the calendar itself. “Very few people were complaining about New Hampshire and Iowa being the early test. There was some complaint about it, but we didn’t deal with that problem,” said McGovern, also adding: “I personally wouldn’t want to get into saying that forever, New Hampshire and Iowa will be the first two — but I’m not disturbed about it, either. If another state wants to crowd in there, that’s fine, too, but they have to battle that out among themselves, the various states.”
In the end, McGovern thinks the current calendar structure should be left alone: “We’ve got a pretty good process. And everybody’s got a crack at it — that’s the most important thing. In the old process, it was primarily white, middle aged, middle class men. They probably had 90 percent of the delegates. And when you looked out on the convention in those days, it wasn’t the face of America — it was the face of the Rotary Club.”
So what sort of alternatives could exist?
Professor Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, described to TPM one reform proposal that often gets discussed — and also why it might be impossible to actually enact it.
“Of the proposals that have been floated over time, one is the regional Super Tuesdays: The idea that you package the country into regional groups, and maybe rotate which regions go in which order, so that over four elections everybody gets to go early,” said Franklin. “That has the idea that regional interests get represented as a group. You kind of cluster the states so campaigning across multiple states is easier to do — that was one that seemed to have a bit of appeal 16 years ago or more.
“But again, it requires the states to cooperate with each other, and be willing to go together. And there were always exceptions carved out for Iowa and New Hampshire. But if you’re Rhode Island or Connecticut, do you really want to be lumped in with New York and Pennsylvania, or whatever else might be made into a Northeast Super Tuesday?
Indeed, as states with later primaries discovered during the epic 2008 battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a state that has its primary alone on a single day, or together with just one or two other states, will attract extra attention by the campaigns and the national media, focusing on their issues and consequently helping to build up the party in that state.
“So there were always incentives for a state to not want to be in a regional system,” Franklin said — because the national parties can offer various incentives or disincentives in order to shape the primary calendar, but ultimately they do not have true control, and in the end they will not be willing to genuinely punish states.
Franklin added: “That’s the huge difficulty, is you can threaten that, but then you always want those states’ votes in November. And so the insult, as it’s seen, is a real threat to the parties after the fact.
“Blame the Founders of the Constitution on this — this is one of those effects of federalism that gives the states autonomy in the structure of government, and even more autonomy in the structure of parties. If we were France, and had a unified party system, the parties could just dictate it. But we don’t have that kind of political structure.”
TPM posed that issue to Curry, the Florida GOP chair. “The Democratic Party took a shot at us saying Florida’s legislature doesn’t follow the rules,” said Curry. “Well, that’s not true. They did what was granted to them, and was allowed to them under the law.”
He also said: “Party discipline is important. But there’re a lot of different ideas constituencies. And we’re not a big centralized organization that gives everybody marching orders.”
Curry also said that the Florida GOP should keep pressing the issue of getting its own early slot — and to do so even after the 2012 election is done: “The election is over, and everybody wants to take a rest. But we should be looking at the priorities for four years from now, when it comes to our primary — begin negotiating, so there’s relationship-building and a level of trust, and it’s not the news story when it happens.”
