I don’t think Ford-Reagan in 1976 was decided until really late. Then again, I don’t think Super Tuesday was “a thing” back then, either.
Don’t some states hold Presidential primaries on a different day - a different month, for that matter - than their Congressional primaries?
Open no-primary parties. Rotating Super Tuesday type regional primaries will be best so candidates can spend time in the region before the primary date. All primaries run in April, May, and June. No conventions, if you get enough votes in enough states then you’re on the ballot in November.
In fact, it wasn’t resolved until the convention, as neither of them entered the convention with enough delegates to sew up the nomination. IIRC, that was the last time that either the GOP or Democratic nominee was in doubt that late.
The count was Ford 824, Reagan 678 at the end of the primaries. Reagan put a real push on during the convention but made the mistake of saying he’s have a “liberal” VP for balance and the conservatives revolted.
First Super Tuesday was 1988.
That is indeed true.
Except that states with the undemocratic caucuses go last.
I think just the opposite. Not only do I believe Bush would have won, he would have won the popular vote as well. You are gauging things as though we were to get rid of the primary system recently. My belief is that we never should have gone to it in the first place.
“Should” in what sense? Are you trying to say that if candidates were chosen by party insiders then the winner (whichever party he’s from) would be more qualified and would do a better job of governing once in office? If that’s your point, I don’t necessarily disagree.
My point is that the presidential general election is a popularity contest. By running a series of primary elections, each party determines who is the most popular among its candidates. The primaries don’t find the person who will be the best president, they find the most popular candidate with the best chance of winning the general election.
Should the parties have kept the old process of nomination by insiders? Maybe we’d have had better presidents if they did. I think one party would have discovered the benefit of choosing a popular candidate through primaries, and forced the other party to follow suit in order to compete.
The problem with that is that it relies of the non-existent wisdom of the masses. This results in a candidate that may not best represent the platforms of the party and take the country in the direction that party claims to stand for. And those candidates which do may be deemed by the party to not be the right fit at the time. Under the old system there is no way (IMHO) the likes of Trump, Hillary Clinton, nor Joe Biden would have been candidates in 2016/2020. The popularity contest that elections have become has become a cesspool of celebrity worship.
In other words, do I trust my fellow citizens at large to decide who I get to vote for in an election? The answer is a resounding NO!
Yes, but it also results in a candidate that people will vote for. If you were running a political party, which would you rather have?
Although I think you have a false sense of idealism in what a party claims to stand for. A party is not some living entity, with a distinct identity, opinions, and ideals. It’s a collection of individuals, and the beliefs of the party can be said to be the sum of the beliefs of its members, no mater what the platform committee may come up with. You can say that your pristine copy of Action Comics #1 is worth ten-million dollars, but that don’t make it so. It’s worth what someone pays for it when it changes hands. If a political party nominates a failed real-estate mogul, third-rate reality show star, who wants to squirt horse de-wormer up the wazoo to treat COVID, then that is what the party believes, by definition.
And, so as not to seeem like a hijack, what do posters here think is the purpose of the nominating process; is it for the party leaders to listen to the rank-and-file and find out what and who they want, or is it to tell the members who the nominee will be and to start generating support for that person? Remember the conflict over Hillary Clinton winning among superdelegates while Bernie Sanders was more popular, and the division that caused with the Democratic Party.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy that insists either option is exclusive of each other.
Things actually worked and multiple parties won elections before we let Dick & Jane Stareintomyphoneallday have a say in who an independant organization put up as their candidate.
I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. I think the two qualities, appealing to party bosses or to primary voters, are independent of each other. Maybe the same person is favored by both groups, but it’s no more likely than random chance.
Sure, back when both parties chose their nominee in a smoke-filled room, neither gained any advantage. As soon as one party figures out something that gives them an advantage (a candidate with demonstrated popularity), the other party has to follow suit.
I still think the baseball analogy is apt. If you want to win games in the World Series, you send the team that did the best job winning games in the regular season and the playoffs. If you want to win votes in the general election, you nominate the candidate who won the most votes in the primaries. It’s not any more complicated than that.
Problem is, I certainly don’t trust the party committees, either. In fact, I trust them somewhat less.
(And I think the Democratic party committee almost certainly would have nominated Hillary Clinton – and never would have nominated Obama.)
And that’s what democracy is all about. Somehow we need to get everybody to understand democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried. Our problem is those who believe the problems of democracy need fixing when they are actually its outstanding features. We have to get rid of the fixers and their fixes which turn out to be a direct betrayal of the underlying principle. It is not easy to do, I hate having to defend the rights of morons to vote but that’s the way it works.
Even more so: the RNC and DNC themselves face the matter of the State Parties being autonomous entities. In other threads comparing the American party system to other democracies we have gone over the notion of that the American parties currently lack the same kind of structural organization. The National Committee does not command the Arizona/Florida/California/New York parties. The most they can do is say “if you don’t follow these rules we will not seat your delegates” and both Dem and Rep state officials from the Important Early States answer back “oh, yeah? tell them to their faces at the door”. And they mostly do whatever they can to prevent it getting to that point.
Consider the millions across the rest of the country who look at those two outcomes and think, we would have taken either one over what we did get. (Though to be fair, also consider the further millions I’d ask where TF were you on voting days to prevent it?)
How do you feel about elections in general, then? Bring back the Monarchy, or? 
This was basically what I was trying to say, too.
Why trust your fellow citizens to decide the final outcome, then? Like, I actually agree with the logic that the average citizen is definitely not qualified to select our leaders, I don’t think I am qualified, if I think about it as honestly as possible, and I feel I’m probably at least slightly above average (not that that means anything, most people do). If even I’m not qualified, then why is everyone else? So no, I don’t trust my fellow citizens at large either, but on agreeing with this, I cannot help but conclude that my fellow citizens also should not be a part of the decisionmaking process at all, which means the entire democratic system suffers the same flaw.
Unfortunately, just as I’m not qualified to make decisions on who should be in charge, I also am not qualified to devise a replacement system, even if I might occasionally spout my opinion about what might be better.
It is axiomatic that while individuals might be ignorant, if not necessarily stupid, collectively they will transmogrify and make sound decisions. It just stands to reason.
Which is utter BS. The majority of the country doesn’t live or work, or even vacation in NH & we’re not subject to any other NH laws; why should we be subject to theirs of self importance? Why do New Hamsterites get to choose from so many candidates many of whom are long gone by the time I get to vote?
Living in a later primary state I’m very much disenfranchised. Typically, one party has their nominee locked up & if not, it’s bandwagon time, meaning first place needs something like 30 more votes & has double what the second leading candidate has. I can vote for that second place guy but do so knowing I’m throwing my vote away as the leading guy will have it sewed up shortly. Assuming you could bet on a NASCAR race halfway thru the last lapOther, earlier voting states get much more of a say in who becomes the next presidential candidate than we do.
If we were going to do it right (
) every state would get equal representation at being first, middle & later over a period of ___ election cycles.
Living in a closed primary state I can’t imagine anything worse. The candidates elected in a closed primary state are more fringy & don’t represent the electorate as a whole. If you’re smart, in the primary you vote for the most electable candidate not the most rabid one to your far right/left position because when they lose in the general election your stuck with someone even worse than a more centrist candidate in your party. Why should an Independent not get a say in the election as the general election ends up being someone further to the left vs. someone further to the right.
If the parties just passed a rule that they would ignore the NH primary results if they are run too early the problem would go away. NH only has the power because the parties let them.