What's the point of Primaries?

[volatile]

As a Brit, I'm a little confused by the whole concept of the Primaries. They seem so very superfluous...

Why don't the parties just conduct a mail ballot of party members to pick the preferred candidate? Why is all this money and time and effort spent on traipsing round the country? In essence, what purpose do Primaries serve that the sensible, quicker, cheaper and easier systems used in other countries don't?

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

They also garner attention and undecideds to the party

 

[Brainster]

As a Brit, I'm a little confused by the whole concept of the Primaries. They seem so very superfluous...

Why don't the parties just conduct a mail ballot of party members to pick the preferred candidate? Why is all this money and time and effort spent on traipsing round the country? In essence, what purpose do Primaries serve that the sensible, quicker, cheaper and easier systems used in other countries don't?

The primaries used to be a kind of trial run to see which of the candidates could actually get voters to pull the lever for them. At that point the party bigwigs would get together in the famed "smoke-filled room" and hammer out a deal as to who would be the nominee and where the spoils would be distributed.

But in 1968, the party bosses mostly ignored the primary results, where the Democrats clearly preferred the antiwar candidates, and installed Hubert Humphrey as the candidate of the party. When Humphrey lost, the antiwar folks managed to insert themselves into the party apparatus to change the process to make the primaries more important, and make more of them. This has resulted in the current situation where the primaries have become the end in themselves, rather than a means to the end.

As to the value of the primaries, the early ones require the candidates to do a kind of retail politicking, on an individual level. The advantage of having them spaced out (as was the case in the past) was that they made sure that no candidate could get the nomination without a long process that would reveal his (or her) weaknesses, both in terms of geography electoral problems and past skeletons in the closet.

 

[Puppycow]

Our current system is probably more a result of evolution than of intelligent design. As Brainster said, it wasn't until the 70s that primaries actually determined the nominee.

As a test run, voters get to see how a candidate is on the stump. And the media exposure functions as a sort of vetting process. If there are hidden weaknesses that take some time to uncover, they will usually become apparant as the top candidates are exposed to the media for a long time.

 

[volatile]

Our current system is probably more a result of evolution than of intelligent design. As Brainster said, it wasn't until the 70s that primaries actually determined the nominee.

As a test run, voters get to see how a candidate is on the stump. And the media exposure functions as a sort of vetting process. If there are hidden weaknesses that take some time to uncover, they will usually become apparant as the top candidates are exposed to the media for a long time.

See, that happens in the UK when the parties choose their leaders - just without the messy touring and without the necessity for people to actually come out and vote. The Tory Party (and the LibDems, I think) actually get their members to submit postal ballots to pick the party leaders, which seems to be, in essence, the same as the Primaries but cheaper, quicker and less effort.

 

[Puppycow]

See, that happens in the UK when the parties choose their leaders - just without the messy touring and without the necessity for people to actually come out and vote. The Tory Party (and the LibDems, I think) actually get their members to submit postal ballots to pick the party leaders, which seems to be, in essence, the same as the Primaries but cheaper, quicker and less effort.

Well, is there no resentment among the common people that all this is done by party elites without their direct input? In our system regular folks get to cast a vote, FWIW.

ETA: Oops. Maybe I misunderstood. Are the "members" you refer to regular folks or party bigwigs?

 

[leftysergeant]

In the UK, the people do not pick the head of state. Different critter, totally.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

It's a plot by the US networks to divert them from their true purpose -- finding the killer of poor little JonBinnet Ramsey.

 

[Corsair 115]

In the UK, the people do not pick the head of state. Different critter, totally.

Arguably, they don't in the U.S. either since it's the Electoral College which elects the President, not the popular vote.

 

[corplinx]

The point of primaries is to keep the US funneling money into ethanol from what I've seen so far.

 

[steverino]

The primaries used to be a kind of trial run to see which of the candidates could actually get voters to pull the lever for them. At that point the party bigwigs would get together in the famed "smoke-filled room" and hammer out a deal as to who would be the nominee and where the spoils would be distributed.

But in 1968, the party bosses mostly ignored the primary results, where the Democrats clearly preferred the antiwar candidates, and installed Hubert Humphrey as the candidate of the party. When Humphrey lost, the antiwar folks managed to insert themselves into the party apparatus to change the process to make the primaries more important, and make more of them. This has resulted in the current situation where the primaries have become the end in themselves, rather than a means to the end.

As to the value of the primaries, the early ones require the candidates to do a kind of retail politicking, on an individual level. The advantage of having them spaced out (as was the case in the past) was that they made sure that no candidate could get the nomination without a long process that would reveal his (or her) weaknesses, both in terms of geography electoral problems and past skeletons in the closet.

Great post. As a former Chicagoan, I can say that the part about Humphrey and the smoke-filled room is absolutely accurate. Had Bobby Kennedy survived, I sometimes wonder if he would have been as easily brushed aside as Eugene McCarthy.

 

[New Ager]

Arguably, they don't in the U.S. either since it's the Electoral College which elects the President, not the popular vote.

The people's vote determines the Electoral College vote.

 

[Kerberos]

The people's vote determines the Electoral College vote.

Yeah, but the people's vote largely determine the Parliaments vote when it comes to who is Prime Minister in the UK as well. You'll have to go to countries with election systems other than first past the post to find Parliaments making genuinly independent judgements about who is to become PM without an election in which the voters knew who they'd get if they voted for which party. It has happened in Denmark on occassion, though not for the last 15 years or so.

 

[volatile]

Well, is there no resentment among the common people that all this is done by party elites without their direct input? In our system regular folks get to cast a vote, FWIW.

ETA: Oops. Maybe I misunderstood. Are the "members" you refer to regular folks or party bigwigs?

Members are the regular registered, paid-up party members - the politically savvy man-on-the-street, whom I assume is also the constituency for the primaries?

 

[Rob Lister]

The people's vote determines the Electoral College vote.

Well, the popular vote is a proxy for the EC vote, but doesn't determine it. The winner of the PV may or may not win the EC vote (i.e. Bush/Gore)

 

[New Ager]

Well, the popular vote is a proxy for the EC vote, but doesn't determine it. The winner of the PV may or may not win the EC vote (i.e. Bush/Gore)

The popular vote in each state does determine it.

 

[aerosolben]

In the UK, the people do not pick the head of state. Different critter, totally.

Arguably, they don't in the U.S. either since it's the Electoral College which elects the President, not the popular vote.

The people's vote determines the Electoral College vote.

Yeah, but the people's vote largely determine the Parliaments vote when it comes to who is Prime Minister in the UK as well.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume leftysergeant was not pointing out the subtleties between direct and indirect democratic elections, but rather pointing out that head of state in the UK is a hereditary position. PM is "merely" the head of the government.

Technically, a head of state is a more public facing position than head of government, and the ability to handle oneself speaking to the media/people/foreign dignitaries is more important. However, I don't know that there are a tremendous amount of additional "head of state" duties taken on by the POTUS that aren't by the modern UK PM.

 

[Sefarst]

See, that happens in the UK when the parties choose their leaders - just without the messy touring and without the necessity for people to actually come out and vote. The Tory Party (and the LibDems, I think) actually get their members to submit postal ballots to pick the party leaders, which seems to be, in essence, the same as the Primaries but cheaper, quicker and less effort.

Don't forget that the US is much larger with many more people. There are large regional differences and it's valuable for parties to have the candidates go through a trial by fire in these areas to see how they will match up in the general election.

 

[ddt]

See, that happens in the UK when the parties choose their leaders - just without the messy touring and without the necessity for people to actually come out and vote. The Tory Party (and the LibDems, I think) actually get their members to submit postal ballots to pick the party leaders, which seems to be, in essence, the same as the Primaries but cheaper, quicker and less effort.

Not only that it costs less effort, but I have a more fundamental gripe: a party is an association, and if you want to have a vote who is to become its leader, you should join as a member! It's not as if it's very expensive to join - at least not over here, the party I'm member of asked a minimum contribution of EUR 15 per year.

Here in the Netherlands, traditionally party leaders are elected at the party congress, by representatives of the districts. Recently, two major parties switched to a direct vote by all members, which of course garnered quite some media attention (especially the "American" campaign of Ms. Verdonk).

In the UK, the people do not pick the head of state. Different critter, totally.

But in the UK (and in Holland) the Queen is head of state, and has only a ceremonial function. The party leader in the UK of the winning party (nearly) always becomes PM and thus political head of the government.

But ultimately, the party leader is there to garner as much votes as possible for his party and thus get its party into government. I don't see much difference there between the US system which directly chooses its head of government, or the US or Dutch system where a government is formed on basis of parliamentary elections.

There is a second problem I have, though, with the primaries. In most states, you have to register as a "Democrat" or "Republican" voter to be able to vote in the respective primaries. Isn't this counter to the principle of secrecy of the ballot? Of course, you don't have to vote according to this registration, but why should the government register someone's preference for either party? In my view, that's up to the parties themselves to have a registration of voters who want to vote in primaries.

 

[ddt]

You'll have to go to countries with election systems other than first past the post to find Parliaments making genuinly independent judgements about who is to become PM without an election in which the voters knew who they'd get if they voted for which party. It has happened in Denmark on occassion, though not for the last 15 years or so.

In a land as Denmark or the Netherlands, where no party ever had a majority, it of course depends on which parties agree on a coalition government. In the Netherlands, the last time the biggest party didn't get into government was in 1977. At least since then, the party leader of the biggest government party always became PM. Some party leaders had announced they wouldn't go into the government but would stay in parliament, but they never won . E.g., in 2003, Labor Party leader Bos said so, and was badgered for weeks to come up with the person who would become PM when the Labor Party would win.

Sorry for the derail .