Party primaries are not ‘public decisions,’ rules expert sayshttps://www.yahoo.com/news/party-primaries-are-not-public-decisions-rules-154558765.html?ref=gsThe current controversy over the Republican Party’s nominating process,
driven by Donald Trump’s complaints that the system is “rigged” and “corrupt” — and his call for a “bold infusion of popular will” — ignores the fact that the rules have been generally the same for more than four decades. Kamarck, who started as an aide to President Jimmy Carter and became a top White House official during the Clinton administration in the ’90s, wrote a book called Primary Politics (2009), which explains the history of how the modern nominating process for Republicans and Democrats came to be.
It happened all the time pre-1972.
The first nominating convention was in 1832. Until 1968, Americans nominated their presidents in almost exactly the same way. It was party leaders, elected as delegates in their states, going to the convention. For all that time, almost no one ran in primaries. There were very few. In fact, running in a primary was considered a weakness, not a mark of strength. In ’72, because of … reform efforts on the Democratic side, more states held primaries, [and] those primaries suddenly were binding — or attempted to be — on the delegates.
Why were the Founding Fathers concerned about parties?
The founders were concerned about the mischief of factions. They created this system of elaborate checks and balances to stop anybody from gaining too much power.
What the founders created is something that Trump doesn’t like, where it is very hard for one faction to foist its will on others. The Founding Fathers tried to avoid factional disputes, and they did not succeed, because by 1800, the Jefferson versus Adams race was one of the meanest, nastiest party fights in history
No other democracy in the world nominates its candidates in primaries. All the parliamentary democracies have party conferences and they have lists.
