Advantages & Disadvantages of Primaries

Primary system was universally adopted after matters came to a head at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago where the vice president Hubert Humphrey was chosen as the democratic presidential candidate, supported by the heavy weight party boss, R.J.Daley, mayor of Chicago. Humphrey had not entered a single primary and supporters of Senator Eugene McCarthy, who had, were very critical of the selection procedure. Humphrey went on the be defeated in the general election and the democrats set up the McGovern-Fraser Commission.

Advantages

• A lot more transparent than the corruption envolved in the Machine politics that ruled the selection of the candidacy before this point, where party bosses made ‘back room deals’ in ‘smoke filled rooms’
• Increase participation of the ordinary Voting Age Population despite the fact that participation in primaries had never reached over 30% which it reached in 2008. However in 2012 it plumeted back down to 17% but there was a record turn out of 122,255 in Iowa.
• More candidates: in 1968 there were 3 Democrat and 2 Republican Candidates compared to 8 D and 7 R in 2008 and in 2012 there was 12 republican candidates who came and went through the primary season.
• The gruelling race has been seen by many as an appropriate test of stamina for the candidates who seek the demanding job of the president. This has been important as with Paul Tsongas who was recovering from cancer, he seem to lack the physical resillience for the job.
• It makes the candidates get to know America in all its diversity and tests their judgement in their choice of campaign strategists and strategy. Some argue that Obama was a stronger candidate because of the primaries against Hillary Clinton. Romney too with rule changes and intra-party competition.
• Allows washington ‘Outsiders’ to have a chance against the ‘insiders’; the process is opened up to candidates who do not at first have national reputations such as Carter (1976), Bill Clinton (1992) and Barrack Obama (2008).

Disadvantages

• Commentators have described it as ‘madness’ (Broder 1996), ‘a crazy process’ (New York Times) and Loevy has questioned the ‘quality of participation’ claiming primary voters often know little about the choices on offer but others argue they are better informed. Ashbee suggests that the process contributes to a wider voter fatigue.
• There is often widespread voter apathy and boredom; more people do participate than before 1968 but the turn out can vary enormously; when an incumbent president is running for re-election and so only one party has a genuine contest then turn out is as low as 17%. (17.5%, 1996, Clinton re-election, 17.2% 2004 and Bush.) Yet in 2008 it soared to 30%, largely due to the Democratic contest
• Primary voters are unrepresentative of the voting-age population; they tend to be older, better educated, wealthier and more ideological than the public; Fiorina writes of ‘the ascendance of the purists’. This is possibly more true in caucus meetings which attract more committed Atypical party identifiers and so some ideological candidates do better than they should.The Christian Right has been known to effectively exploit this opportunity in states like Virginia and Texas. Norrander, however, argues that primary voters are not extremists but ‘slightly better informed.
• INVISIBLE PRIMARIES: The ‘invisibles’ are defined politically as the time between when a candidate states their intention to run and the beginning of the primary season but more realistically they begin before this when a potential candidate begins to ‘test the water’ for the support they would recieve but it has been argued that they are “anything but invisible” and so the name ‘invisibles’ is slowly being eroded to the ‘pre-primaries’. The invisibles are mainly played out through the media and the two key tests are NAME RECOGNITION (polls) and the WAR CHEST(money/funding)  ARE THE OFFICIAL PRIMARIES REALLY THAT IMPORTANT AFTER THE RISE OF THE INVISIBLES. From 1968 to 2012 there were 14 presidential elections and 26 candidates were chosen and on 22 occasions the nominee was the front runner before the primary season. (13 of 14 in the Republicans) here McCain was the exception but in the Democratic Party on five occasions including 2004 and 2008 primaries mattered. 2008 was at least for the Democrats the biggest upset in H.Clinton’s defeat in forty year 2012 ROMNEY AHEAD IN INVISIBLE WAR CHEST BUT STILL A CONTEST. because of this the process has become too long; Kennedy announced his intention to run 66 days before the first primary, Kerry 423 days, Obama 332.
• IOWA AND NEW HAMPSHIRE:The New Hampshire primary and Iowa caucuses are significant in the presidential nomination process because they are the first two contests and thus they are saturated by candidates, events and media during the‘invisibles’ These states are not representative of the voting age population and hence some criticise their undue significance in the primary process. Winning one in ‘normal’ circumstances boosts a candidate’s likelihood of nomination. Winning both usually secures the nomination making the rest of the primaries irrelevant as with Reagan in 1984 and Kerry in 2004. In 2008,McCain won New Hampshire and so did Romney in 2012. In 2008 when Clinton lost Iowa, as with Dean in 2004, Obama’s win gave him credibility and the ‘big Mo’ over her as the heir-presumptive.  Although she later won New Hampshire, he came a close second and her victory failed to compensate for Iowa. these 2 contests generate huge media interest and have poll and financial importance but they also lead to the compression and frontloading of the season resulting in Super Tuesdays.
• FRONTLOADING AND COMPRESSION:‘Frontloading’ is the phenomenon by which an increasing number of states from the1980s began to schedule their presidential primaries or caucuses earlier in the season to increase their influence. Thus, although primaries are supposed to be spread throughout the spring and summer of the election year, early scheduling has caused compression and distorted the primary campaigns. Here attention flows to the larger states with the most delegates and it limits the ability of lesser known candidates to corral resources and raise visibility.
• SUPER TUESDAY, SUPER TUESDAY 2 IN 2008: several contests on the same day, so-called Super Tuesday which began in the 1980s when a block of Southern states tried to increase their influence. Yet even in 1988 only 11 states had primaries and caucuses before the end of March. By 2008 it was 42 and there were even two Super Tuesdays, in the February, Tsunami Tuesday (in which 52% of the Democratic and 41% of the Republican delegates were awarded) followed by another in March. Here McCain was assured of the nomination in 2008, as Kerry had been in 2004 and so Senator Brock argued…‘the nominations are over before they have begun.”
• BUT RULE CHANGES AND 2012:The Republicans in 2012 sought to overcome distortions by banning ‘winner-takes-all’ contests before 1st April and thus fewer states than in 2008 held contests on Super Tuesday. Only ten states voting with an allocation of 391 delegates and so it had only about half the potential impact of its 2008 predecessor. It was not until April 25th that Romney was declared the presumptive nominee and it was the longest nomination race since 1992.
• It is very costly given that candidates have to finance campaigns which involve huge advertising budgets especially for TV and radio coverage.Elizabeth Dole had to pull out from the 2000 Republican race before the primaries due to lack of funding and she complained ‘the money has become the message.’ Obama and Clinton spent over $500 millions on the primary campaign and fundraising has become a crucial component of the ‘invisible’ contest. 2012 became the first election where both candidates refused matching funding for both the primaries and the election and due to the the citizens united descision and the rise of SUPER PACS it became a $6 BILLION election.
• The process is too media-dominated as it is relied upon by voters to convey information. Some argue the media has replaced the party bosses. Loevy (1995) ‘…a televised horse race focusing more on rival media consultants… than competing ideas.’
• The process can develop into bitter personal feuds like McCain versus Bush in 2000; in some disputes the rivalry may have played its part in the nominee’s defeat in the general election. (Bush versus Buchanan in 1992, Carter versus Kennedy in 1980 and Hillary and Bill Clinton were accused of making personal attacks on Obama.) If sufficiently serious, voters reject disunited parties.
• There is a lack of peer review leading to a failure to test presidential qualities; before 1972 candidates were selected by other professionals but primaries test campaigning skills not presidential. Cronin and Genovese, so introduction of super-delegates by Democrats in 1984. ‘What it takes to become a president may not be what is needed to govern the nation.’ This is one reason for the introduction of ‘super delegates’ at nomination conventions but if they were used in any significant way this would fuel the argument that they are just party bosses.

Evaluation

This system was introduced in 1972 after the 1968 debacle, on the back of the McGovern-Fraiser commission. It is a significant improvement to the corruption and Washington ‘insider’ domination of the years previous to it’s establishment, however there is still many flaws in the system which has lead to it being criticised. There has also been some suggestions of reform, such as: regional primaries, states split into 4 groups according to population with smallest states voting first, give more ‘weight’ to elected politicians SUPER DELEGATES (party bosses), some argue there should be pre-primary mini conventions  limited to elected party politicians to approve a list of three possible presidential candidates; contenders would need to present a petition signed by at least 10% of the delegates.