The structure of the American party system reflects the decentralisation of authority under the Constitution and the sectional diversity of American so- ciety; it reflects also the problems of political organisation in the most elec- tion-conscious nation in the world. There are approximately one million elec- tive offices to be filled in the United States, and in any one year there may be 120,000 or 130,000 elections held, most of them for local school boards.
Inevitably, the electoral system that regulates the filling of these offices is one of the structures that most faithfully reflects the geographical factors in American political life, because constituencies are based upon geographi- cal areas, but it has other important dimensions as well. The complex elec- tion machinery makes full allowance for the expression of the individualistic and personal elements in the American electorate. It gives to the individual voters almost embarrassingly rich opportunities to express their views on the personalities of the candidates, and to enter fully into the processes of choosing those who will govern. Party organisation, already fragmented by the effects of federalism and the separation of powers, is subjected to further disintegrating forces by the introduction of primary elections, by the use of the long ballot and by the opportunities for split-ticket voting.
The complexity of the electoral system is due in large part to the fact that the electoral law, whether it relates to federal, state or local elections, is almost wholly a matter of state law, with wide variations in practice among the fifty states. The fact that American elections take place at fixed intervals structures the whole programme of political life. The exact dates of future elections are known, so that there is a long process of electioneering, build- ing up over a two-year period to the climax of the presidential campaign every four years. Indeed, in a sense, the jockeying for position in the next presidential election takes place almost as soon as the polls close. The fact that the elections take place upon the appointed day, regardless of the move- ment of world events or the complexities of domestic issues, means that elec- tions are determined by the circumstances of the time, rather than as in a parliamentary system, where they are part of the machinery available to the government to try to influence the course of events. Elections to the Senate
and the House of Representatives take place every two years, one-third of the Senate and the whole of the House standing for election. Thus we have the phenomenon of ‘mid-term’ elections, that is the election of all 435 Rep- resentatives and perhaps thirty-two or more Senators half-way through the term of office of the incumbent president, an arrangement that can result in some strange political situations, and that provides considerable difficulties for political strategists. The fact that the president cannot dissolve Congress, no matter how intransigent it becomes, and remains in office for four years, whether or not the administration’s policies receive the support of Congress, gives to each branch of the government a degree of mutual independence that is clearly reflected in the behaviour of presidential and congressional candidates at election time. There are four major steps in an American presi- dential election: the caucuses and primaries, the conventions, the campaign culminating in the election, and the vote in the Electoral College. Let us trace the process through each of these stages.
Caucuses and primary elections
At the end of the nineteenth century America saw the development, at coun- ty and city level, of some of the most formidable and cohesive political or- ganisations that have ever evolved in a democratic system of government.
Yet for the most part American elections are not fought between rival, highly organised parties. Much of the vital stuff of American politics consists of battles between different groups within a particular party, often between the official party organisation and other groups or factions that oppose it. The official party organisation can be attacked, and at times defeated, by other groups within the party, bitterly divided from it on grounds of personalities or policies. Fratricidal strife is the hallmark of American political life, with the bitterest battles being fought within as well as between the parties. This strife has been institutionalised by the adoption of the device of the primary election. The electoral process must begin with the selection of candidates for office and their nomination. It is at this first stage, rather than in the election proper, that the really decisive choices may be made, for it is the selection of the people who will at a later stage be the representatives and leaders of the party that determines its true character. The selection of party candidates may be achieved in a number of ways: by a group of party leaders meeting in caucus; by delegates at a party meeting or convention; by party supporters; or by a combination of these methods. Elections in which party supporters choose their candidates prior to the general election are called primary elections.
The caucus system was the earliest method adopted for choosing candi- dates for elective office; a caucus is a meeting of party leaders or activists to decide on policy or to select candidates for office. In the nineteenth century, party leaders in the secrecy of ‘smoke-filled rooms’ selected candidates for the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, and state and local
Presidential primaries
The National Conventions (nominate presidential
and vice-presidential candidates)
The national campaign
The presidential election
The electoral college State and local party meetings
County conventions
Primary elections
State and district conventions
(Nomination of candidates for federal legislature,
state, and local government offices)
State and local campaigns
Election of federal legislators, state and local
government officers Elect delegates
Choose delegates
Choose delegates Choose delegates
Elect delegates
Figure 4.1 The electoral process
offices in this way. As political bosses then dominated the American parties, this method of selection entrenched the power of party leaders and perpetu- ated their control over the party. In the early years of the Republic, caucuses of members of Congress selected candidates for the presidency. After 1840, however, delegates from the several states selected presidential candidates in national nominating conventions. Political bosses still played an important role in the bargaining that went on between state delegations in order to find a candidate acceptable to the various factions, and wheeling and dealing still characterised the selection of presidential candidates well into the twentieth century. Nominating conventions were intended to make the selection of can-
didates more open and democratic, but the belief in the democratic character of the convention system proved illusory. Party leaders could manage conven- tions so that they became a mere facade for oligarchic control by professional politicians. As part of the revulsion against ‘bossism’ and all that it entailed, primary elections were introduced in order to break up the oligarchies of city and county machines. Caucus meetings are still held in a number of states – fifteen in 2004 – to select delegates to the national conventions.
Primary elections give party members a direct voice in the choice of party representatives through the medium of a public, state-controlled election, in which any member of the party can stand as a candidate and all members can vote. Primaries are intended to bring the instruments of mass democ- racy, the political parties, under democratic control. The primary elections used in the United States are in principle extremely democratic, for the definition of ‘party member’ that qualifies the elector to vote in a primary is extremely widely drawn. Party membership does not entail fee-paying or card-holding membership in an organisation. It usually means nothing more than the declaration by the ordinary member of the electorate, when he or she registers as a voter, of having voted for a particular party in the past, or intending to do so in the future, without of course in any way committing him or her to the support of a particular party at the forthcoming election.
Thus a registered Democrat may vote in the Democratic primary to choose the candidates for that party in the general election, but when election day comes he or she is quite free to vote for the Republican candidate. In a few states democratic principles are taken to the ultimate extreme, for in the so-called ‘open primaries’ voters are allowed to vote in whichever primary they choose, without being restricted by their party choice at the time of registration. Such a system is totally disruptive of party organisation, and for a time both parties abandoned the open primary, but a number of states have now returned to it.
In 2004 presidential primaries were held in thirty-five states. In most of these elections delegates are chosen for the national conventions, commit- ted to the support of particular candidates, at least on the first ballot in the convention. In some cases the primary vote merely expresses the preference of the voters for a particular prospective nominee for the presidency, without binding the delegates, who will nevertheless feel inclined to support the win- ner of the primary in their state, particularly if that candidate looks likely to win the nomination. The fact that the primary season stretches over months, moving from state to state, tends to make the earlier ones more significant, because they may start a trend in favour of one of the candidates. This has in the past caused a certain amount of manoeuvring by states wishing to have an influence in the early stages of the primary battles. In 1988 a number of Southern and Western states decided to hold their primaries on the same day, and in 1996 seven states held their primaries on ‘Super Tuesday’, 5 March. The result was to boost the candidacy of Bob Dole in the Republican primaries, turning them into a kind of Southern declaration in his favour.
In response five of the New England states held ‘Yankee primaries’ on the same day in early May, in order to register their collective view. The pres- sure to hold primaries earlier and earlier in the year continued in 2004. New Hampshire held its place as the leader in late January, but by mid-March the Democrats had already held primaries in twenty-four states, ten of them on
‘Super Tuesday’, 2 March. There are demands, from time to time, to simplify the process of candidate selection by holding a single nation-wide primary, but there is little likelihood that such a reform will be implemented.
Primaries are, therefore, in a sense a party matter, but they are by no means discreetly conducted internal affairs. They are usually fought with as much publicity, effort and bitterness as the elections proper for which they are in theory only the preliminary rounds. Rival candidates for the party’s nomination conduct public campaigns and engage in every electoral tactic, including extreme attempts to discredit their opponents. Primaries are often a battle between the chosen candidates of the established party organisa- tion and challengers to their authority, who create their own organisations to contest the primary. In Massachusetts this internecine strife is even further institutionalised by the holding of a ‘pre-primary convention’, at which the party delegates endorse a list of the contenders for nomination for various offices as the official candidates in the primary. Yet the ‘official’ candidates may subsequently be defeated in the primary and replaced by their success- ful opponents as the party’s official representatives at the general election.
In those areas where only one party has any hope of winning at the general election the primaries become the true battleground for office, where fac- tions within the party fight out the contest for power, and where success in the primary is tantamount to election.
The bitterness of the primary contests extends to the highest level of the political system, the nominations for the presidency of the United States, for here the most is to be gained and the most to be lost. The presidential primaries may become the forum for bitter personal battles between the foremost leaders of the same political party, carried on in the full glare of publicity before the eyes of the whole country, indeed of the world. The 1964 Republican primaries in which Senator Goldwater and Governor Rockefeller contended for the party’s presidential nomination were savage battles. When the battles were over, Theodore H. White remarked, ‘the Republican Party was so wounded that its leaders were fitter candidates for political hospitali- sation than for governmental responsibility.’
Equally important may be the internal political divisions in the state where a presidential primary is being held. Candidates for the presidential nomina- tion inevitably become involved in the factional fights at state and local level, for each aspiring president will have supporters in the state, who will hope to gain in their local political struggles by the success of their champion at the national level. However, the result of these cross-currents of national and state politics may be very serious for contenders for the presidential office.
If the dominant leadership of the state party is opposed strongly to a leading contender in the presidential primary in the state, the state party might be torn apart in the ensuing campaign, deepening personal animosities within the party and weakening its organisation and morale. The resulting divisions within the party may have a considerable impact upon the presidential elec- tion itself, and indeed upon the politics of the presidency for many years. The danger of such a situation arising may decide contenders for the nomination not to enter for the primary in a particular state.
Whether or not to enter for the primaries used to be a difficult decision for the presidential aspirant, although nowadays it has become an indispensable route to the nomination. The primary trail to the national convention, tak- ing up the spring months of a presidential election year, is an expensive and exhausting process. Primary elections follow hard upon each other across the country: New Hampshire, Virginia, Wisconsin, California, Connecticut. Few candidates would wish to fight them all, and it becomes a matter of tactics to decide which to contest. In 1960 John F. Kennedy chose the primaries as his route to the nomination, unlike the candidates who were more fa- voured by the professional politicians in the party, and who chose to remain in the background. Kennedy had to demonstrate his popular appeal, and in particular to prove that a Catholic could win votes in Protestant areas. His victory over Hubert Humphrey in West Virginia, a state with an overwhelm- ingly Protestant population, was a major factor in his successful bid for the nomination. In the election of 1968 the profound impact of the early primary victories of Senator Eugene McCarthy upon the political fortunes of Presi- dent Johnson indicated the importance which the primaries could attain in the era of televised politics. The Democratic National Convention went on to accept Hubert Humphrey as its candidate, in spite of the fact that he had fought few primaries and that 80 per cent of the delegates elected through primaries were supporters of Eugene McCarthy or of Robert Kennedy, who had been assassinated. However, at that time only one-third of the delegates to the convention were chosen by primary elections, and the party machine, dominated by President Johnson, could still deliver the nomination to the president’s candidate. By 1980 the situation had changed dramatically. Sev- enty per cent of the delegates to the Democratic Convention were elected via the primary route, and the possibility of manipulating the convention was correspondingly reduced. In subsequent elections the proportion of delegates chosen through primary elections fluctuated, but in 1996 over 85 per cent of the delegates to both the Democratic and Republican Conventions were selected through the primary route, emphasising that nowadays entering the primaries, and fighting almost all of them, is no longer a matter of choice for the aspiring presidential candidate; it is essential.
The primary election campaign of 1992 illustrates very well the process of presidential candidate selection in an age of weak political parties and the power of television. There were five major candidates for the Demo-
cratic nomination: Senator Paul Tsongas from Massachusetts, Governor Bill Clinton from Arkansas, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, former Governor Jerry Brown of California, and Senator Bob Kerrey of Nebraska. A number of other prominent Democrats hovered on the sidelines, but for one reason or another decided not to declare themselves as candidates for the nomina- tion. The first primary was held on 18 February in New Hampshire. Senator Tsongas won, as was to be expected as he himself was from New England, but Bill Clinton came a good second. A week later the South Dakota primary was won by Senator Kerrey, and Clinton achieved only 19 per cent of the votes.
In early March Clinton, the Governor of Arkansas, won a convincing victory in the southern state of Georgia, came second to Tsongas in Maryland and Utah, and came second to Brown in Colorado. At this point no candidate had established a position of dominance, but Clinton was doing better than anyone else. He had only 198 delegates committed to him – he needed 2,145 to secure the nomination – but he had more delegates than any other candi- date. At this point Kerrey and Harkin withdrew from the race.
The stage was set for Super Tuesday, 10 March. When the Democratic Party decided in 1988 to stage a group of primaries in the South early on the same day in the campaign it was in order to give a clear indication that one candidate had strong support in that section. It worked well for Clinton in 1992. He won by large margins in Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Ten- nessee and Texas. Only in the New England states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where the primaries were held on the same day, did he lose to Tsongas. Clinton went on to win in Illinois and Michigan later in the month, and Senator Tsongas decided that he would not actively contest any further primaries. Only Jerry Brown remained a threat to Clinton. In early April Clinton won the primaries in New York and Wisconsin; although his majori- ties over Brown were not convincing, particularly in Wisconsin where Clinton managed only 37.9 per cent to Brown’s 35 per cent, it had become clear that Clinton was the front-runner, and could not be caught. Although many voters distrusted him, he went on to win in state after state, eventually winning thirty of the thirty-six primaries that he contested. By the end of the primary season in June he had the support of more than enough of the delegates to the forthcoming convention to secure the nomination.
In 2004 a similarly open situation existed for the nomination of the presi- dential candidate of the Democratic Party. The incumbent President, George W. Bush, was running for re-election, so there was no real interest in the Republican primaries; the outcome was a foregone conclusion. For the Dem- ocrats the situation was very different; the defeated candidate in the 2000 election, Al Gore, had decided not to run for the nomination in 2004, and the field was wide open. Ten candidates put themselves forward. Initially the front runner was Howard Dean, a former Governor of the state of Vermont;
seven other candidates were, or had been, US Senators, including John Kerry of Massachusetts, John Edwards of North Carolina and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The other two hopefuls were Richard Gephardt, a Member of the