Abstract
Nothing is more important in a democracy than the process by which the contenders for the top executive office emerge from the many aspirants and pretenders to that office. This nomination process tells us not only what type of leadership is preferred but also the dominant interests and forces behind this leadership and the type of governance the society will now have. An examination of this nominating process tells us also something about the quality of the leadership selection system, how genuinely competitive it is, how rational, how responsible, and even how democratic. By late March in 1996 the American parties had selected the three top candidates for the presidency: Robert Dole had won enough primaries to control a majority of delegates to the Republican convention, Bill Clinton long before had been given the Democratic nomination, and Ross Perot had erected his Reform party and had set in motion a process assuring him the designation as its candidate for the presidency. What was the system and process by which these selection decisions were made? How did our nominating system screen out all the other would-be candidates? And was it an effective process?
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Notes
For a good description, see Leon Epstein, Political Parties in the American Mold (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986), 88–108.
Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1960 (New York: Atheneum, 1980), 328.
Denis G. Sullivan, Jeffrey L. Pressman, F. Christopher Arterton, Explorations in Convention Decision-Making: The Democratic Party in the 1970s (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976), 122–24.
M. Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 133–37.
James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (New York: Macmillan, 1916), 187.
Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1972 (New York: Atheneum, 1973), 209.
Gary R. Orren, in Seymour M. Lipset, ed., Emerging Coalitions in American Politics (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Politics, 1978), 130–34.
Stephen Hess, The Presidential Campaign (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1978), 27–38.
Gerald M. Pomper, ed., The Election of 1996 (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1997), 26–36; The Election of 1992 (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1993), 42–44.
An excellent review of the reform commissions is found in William Crotty, Party Reform (New York: Longman, 1983).
Larry M. Bartels, Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). See also John H. Aldrich, “A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns,” American Political Science Review 74 (1980): 651–69.
Paul R. Abramson et al., “‘Sophisticated’ voting in the 1988 Presidential Primaries,” American Political Science Review 86 (1992): 55–69.
Quoted by Theodore H. White, The Making of the President 1964 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), 231–32.
Pendleton Herring, The Politics of Democracy (New York: Norton, 1940), 238.
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© 2000 Bedford/St. Martin’s
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Eldersveld, S.J., Walton, H. (2000). Presidential Nominations: The New Model. In: Political Parties in American Society. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11290-3_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-11290-3_10
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