Presidential Primaries Fail

The United States is totally failing to maintain a Presidential election process that results in candidates that are ready based on experience and political success. Since 1789 when the US came into being the process of choosing the president went through many iterations. About the only part that remains in the Constitution is the Electoral College. Many believe that be ending the Electors role, the problems of the lack of experienced, successful and popular candidates will be alleviated. Unfortunately, the candidates are selected long before the Electoral College votes.

The American primary election system is a misnomer. It is not a system, it’s a mismatched collection of elections and selections based upon a concept that fossilized in the aftermath of the Civil War. That concept, if you can elevate it to that level, is that our elections which have always consisted of two major parties remains with the same two parties; Democrats and Republicans. Before the Civil War, every decade there was a political realignment and politicians changed their affiliation based on the same honorable motives as we have today. They chose the party they believed would deliver them a victory.

These two political artifacts of the Civil War have won every single Presidential election since the war began. It’s as if they exist as the last battleground. Below the Federal level no other party has been capable of emerging from holding over 90% of the reins of power across the nation. Each year, their power coalesces as they continuosly rig the process by convincing people it would be more democratic to let people vote for which person would represent their party. This meant that no matter what the 2 major parties level of popularity, their candidates will be on the ballot in every single state.

Primaries became the major focus of selecting the candidates for all parties in the wake of Richard Nixon’s resignation. Starting in 1976 the “modern” Primary election system took form. Prior to that the party bosses picked the candidate and fought it out at the convention. Primaries gave the appearance of a democratic process and a false appearance of party unity. The goal, by both parties, was actually to increase democratic participation in the selection process, but due to a couple of disappointing election losses by the Democrats they instituted super delegates to override the will of the people. They wanted to make certain that their candidate would be experienced and successful. That turned into a disaster for the Democrats as experienced and successful are not what wins elections. The Republicans, on the other hand, went for finding the most popular candidate as early as possible. This put an emphasis on popularity and party unity. And with 45 years of experience it is obvious that neither party is producing the caliber of presidential candidates as in the past nor are many of these candidates particularly popular; especially the Democratic ones.

Between the two parties there have been 17 different candidates since 1976 who have run for president. In 11 total elections the only winning candidate that had a record worthy of being a presidential candidate was George H. W. Bush. And he only won because his opponent, Dukakis was not ready for prime time and some carry over popularity of Reagan. Popularity, however brought victories in 7 of the 11 elections. Note that G H W Bush lost a second term when faced with an actual popular candidate in Bill Clinton. G W Bush had the same meh popularity as his father but he faced two unpopular Democratic candidates that actually had both experience and success. Trump won his first race based on popularity and lost re-election due the unusual circumstance of Covid shone a light on his incompetencies, just the reverse of Carter who won due to the unusual circumstance of Nixon’s resignation and Ford’s meh popularity. Carter lost re-election due to the popularity of Reagan and to a lesser degree his handling of the Iran hostages. Democrats when faced with a popular Republican respond with experience and success and always lose. They only win when an outlier popular candidate manages to win the nomination.

It’s time we make some changes to the Primaries, making them non partisan, planning a large number of regularly scheduled debates and creating rules across all states.  I have outlined a plan in a sequel article called Reinvent the Presidential Primaries.