Question Details	Asked By	Asked On
Paty caucus	USstudent244	10/22/03
Hello Mr. Haddock, Thank you for explaining the definition of “legislative caucus” and “nominating convention.” I have been doing reading on it and discovered that the legislative caucus membership was limited to party members, which lead to the claim that the caucus was unrepresentative and undemocratic. Then, to my understanding came the “presidential nomination convention” which was also criticized that it endured basically the same problem of the old caucus mentioned above. The claim here is that “party bosses ran the conventions without regard either for views of the delegates or for the rules of fair play.” Out came the Direct Primary established after the presidential nominating process to eliminate the construction of the “boss and machine” and other corruptions that were asserted in the previous processes. Okay, so now I understand the definition and disadvantages that were in the legislative caucus and the presidential nominating process. So my question(s) to you Mr. Haddock is, what were the advantages of the new direct primary nomination system? Were there any disadvantages? And finally, what nomination process do we use today? (because my book does not specify) I apologize for asking three questions at a time. Thank you, Carl
Answered By		Answered On
stevehaddock		10/22/03
The advantage of the direct primary nomination system was that it allowed the delegates for a nominee candidate to essentially be chosen directly by the members of the party. The disadvantage is that, given the current state of the primary system, particularly within the Democratic party, the early primaries decide the entire race and the later larger primaries become nothing more than a formality to vote for the remaining nomintees. Since the direct primary nomination system was put in place by both parties for the 1972 election, no nomination has gone past the first ballot. The problem with the 1968 Democratic convention was that Eugene McCarthy came into the convention with a majority of the delegates promissing to support him. Hubert Humphrey, the vice-president, came to the convention with no delegates - he hadn't even bothered to run in the primaries. Many McCarthy delegates bolted on the first round, meaning that no-one won the first round. After a lot of wheeling and dealing between Humphrey and the other candidates, a deal was worked out to make Humphrey the nominee. McCarthy was shut out despite his popular support. In 1972, McGovern was the first beneficiary of the "pledged delegate" system. Under this system, a delegate had to vote for their declared candidate on the first ballot. In a tough fought 1972 race, McGovern started to gain momentum and won a tight race. However, in 1976, things started to follow their current pattern. Jimmy Carter, an ex-governor of Georgia with no national exposure, spent most of the year in New Hampshire and clearly won the primary in a big upset. He was front page news and the other candidates, embarrased by their lack of early success, started to fall by the wayside. Since then, the Democrat who wins New Hampshire has received the nomination. Usually what happens is that money spent everywhere else is pretty well wasted by the time the big primaries, like Florida, New York, California and Texas, roll around. As a result, many states have moved up their primaries to before "Super Tuesday", the day in April when many large states historically held their primaries. However, New Hampshire has promissed to hold its first no matter how many other states move theirs earlier. What about Iowa you say? The problem is that Iowa doesn't use a primary system - it elects delegates at a very local level who then go on to chose delegates for the national convention. The sub-delegates are polled for their preferences, but that vote isn't binding or accurate.

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