There is absolutely no way in hell the party bosses and big donors are going to leave anything up to chance, least of all the voters.
You keep saying this and my brain buzzes when you do, so it’s signaling that something’s wrong.
I’m not going to do anything like a full treatment, but post-Civil War off the top of my head (with some looking up of facts) …
Eisenhower and Grant were the most popular men in the country and without a lick of political experience. Military experience is not the same. They shouldn’t have been allowed within miles of the presidency, but they fortunately were given good times. Generals Harrison and Hayes had lower elected positions because they were generals; Garfield served nine terms in Congress. Not much there to recommend them, although Garfield didn’t have much time.
Woodrow Wilson had all of two years as governor in 1912. Judge Aldon Parker, D, 1904 had no political experience at all. Adlai Stevenson was a one-term governor when he was nominated in 1952. He shouldn’t have been nominated again in 1956. William Jennings Bryan, D, was a young popular orator and three-term Representative when he was nominated at 36 in 1896. Not a great choice, worse since he was nominated twice more. Horace Greeley, D, the newspaperman, did spend one term in Congress, but he wasn’t a politician when nominated in 1872. Wendell Willkie, R, 1940, had no political experience at all.
1920 may have been a nadir. Forty-four ballots to nominate James Cox, D. Ten ballots for William Harding to win over a crowd of nobodies. Of course, we all remember John C. Davis, D, a one-term West Virginia representative who was nominated on the 103rd ballot (not a typo) in 1924. (He had some prominent government jobs so he wasn’t a complete loser.)
Richard Nixon was nominated twice, first in 1960 and then in 1968. End of story.
When did the smoke-filled rooms pick credible, experienced candidates on the basis of the political experience and ability? If I give that definition lots of leeway, a few names appear.
Pro-business William McKinley was installed by Republican Party head Mark Hanna in 1896. He had a far amount of experience but Hanna wanted a rubber stamp for her policies. Teddy Roosevelt did a similar installation in 1908 of William Howard Taft, who didn’t want to be president and had no electoral experience but had held high offices. Herbert Hoover was supposedly destined for greatness in 1928. Grover Cleveland came up through the ranks of offices and knew his stuff in 1884. Thomas Dewey, R, was a crusading, popular governor in 1944 and 1948. James G. Blaine, R, 1876, had a ton of experience. Barry Goldwater, R, was a three-term Senator in 1964, though exactly the wrong candidate for the year. Hubert Humphrey, D, had superb credentials in 1968 but was also exactly the wrong candidate for the year.
Hard to know what category to put Franklin Roosevelt in. He was thought a lightweight in 1932 but turned out real well. People thought the same way of John Kennedy in 1960 who was OK but with too short a time to properly evaluate.
I count 35 contested conventions (no sitting president running) between 1868 and 1968. I passed over some people but you get the drift. I can’t find more than 30% of conventions that looked at the best and brightest politicians in the country and made a choice that might rank even in the top 10% of their time. While experience in appointed government positions may be helpful, running for office and serving the people are vital prerequisites. And even many of those who seemed good couldn’t have won, so why bother?
You can make up your own lists and criteria and grade them for yourself. I don’t see any evidence that pre-primary conventions worked more than fitfully. Whatever the proper way of selecting a presidential candidate is, that’s not it.
So you have no problem with someone skewing the election by crossing over and voting in a primary of a party they have no intention of voting for in the general election? I am certain there will be Democrats voting in the Republican presidential primary for the candidate they think has the least chance of beating Biden. That, in my view, is extremely unethical and the reason I oppose open primaries. Your reason for defending them doesn’t hold water.
I want who I think is the best candidate to win the general election, not the best candidate to win the primary. I don’t think many people will do what your stating, & even if they do, it’s fair game.
Also, as I previously stated it totally disenfranchises Independent voters as they get no say in the primary & are only left holding their nose & choosing the lesser of two evils that someone else voted for.
Unaffiliated voters are self-disenfranchised. If they want to vote in a primary, all they have to do is change their registration to that party.
They most certainly do. There will be many otherwise Democratic voters crossing over to vote in the Republican primary in the Spring of '24 to try to get the candidate who has the weakest shot at unseating Biden onto the general election ticket. Why wouldn’t someone do that if it is allowed?
No, it stinks. It is unethical and skews elections by allowing the opposition to help pick the opposing party’s candidate. It is my #1 objection regarding open primaries. What also stinks is that open primaries allow for candidates to get elected under a party they have nothing to do with and only run on because they couldn’t get elected under the other party. This happened in my state.
You have no problem with the opposition skewing the opposing party’s nomination process but you’re worried about a minute’ amount of independent voters?
Alright, then understand that doing away with primaries would enrich independent voters choices… It would bring out different candidates and parties. When was the last time you heard a big deal about 3rd party primaries? It is the primary system itself that stifles independent voices.
They tried this. What pretty much invariably happens is this:
(a) Some small state holds an “early” primary.
(b) The party says, “For holding an early primary, your state’s delegates will not be seated at the convention.”
(c) Eventually, someone will get a majority of the delegates, even without that state.
(d) The state asks the party to seat its delegates anyway, since the result won’t change.
(e) The party, realizing that it would disorganized, if not outright splintered, if it didn’t have every state there, agrees.
Early primaries aren’t about delegates; they’re about building momentum, and the states being able to say that the nominees wouldn’t be where they are without them, so candidates will take them seriously and they get all of the early attention. (Quick - when was the last time there was significant news coverage of the Rhode Island or North Dakota primaries?) Because of this, threats to not seat delegates are ignored.
Note that the Democrats already have a rule where any candidate that campaigns in a state with a “too early” primary (and “campaigning” includes merely having their name on the primary ballot) cannot receive any pledged delegates from that state.
I don’t believe it either. I would love to see cites.
Certainly. One happened in my own backyard.:
The election and re-elections of David A Clarke as Milwaukee County Sheriff.
Clarke is a right-wing conservative who alligns with every aspect of the Republican party.
But he always ran as a Democrat because a Republican wouldn’t get elected Sheriff in Milwaukee County. Whomever wins the Democratic primary for Sheriff will inevitably with the general election.
Clarke counted on crossover votes in an open primary. White Republican voters voted in the Democratic primary for Clarke. Instead of working to get their candidate elected under their party brand they gamed the process!
Clarke resign before the 2018 election because he knew he would not win the primary becaue there was a major primary on the Republican ticket and he would not be able to count on crossover votes.
From WIKI:
After his appointment to the sheriff’s post by McCallum, Clarke declared himself as Democrat, but refused to join the Wisconsin Democratic Party, instead promoting conservative views,[2][37][38] and allying himself with Republican officials.[38] Clarke ran for sheriff as a Democrat, which is advantageous in heavily Democratic Milwaukee County. However, Clarke is almost universally regarded as a staunch right-wing conservative.[39][40] Clarke frequently criticizes Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and other Democrats; often speaks at Republican events, and is allies with the National Rifle Association, which has raised funds for his re-election campaigns.[39] Clarke has in turn been criticized by the local Democratic Party
I don’t care who does it, open primaries stink. They lead to unethical voting and dishonest candidates just to name a few reasons I oppose them.
The best primaries are jungle primaries, but only if they’re combined with a RCV in the general. Alaska has this and I wish more states would adopt their system.
However, that’s for non-presidential offices. I’m not sure if there’s anything similar that would work for presidential primaries, where the people being elected are delegates to the national convention.
I don’t believe the former is possible and we already have the latter.
You’re close. All party based primaries stink. They’re purpose is to remove your right to vote for the candidate of your own choice.
One weird outlier event does not make for a generalization.
I’m with you on wanting closed primaries, but crossover voting changing results is like election fraud. You can find a few individual unrelated cases over time, but it’s not a thing.
That gave us trump, so i doubt if Dems will try again. You dont thing the GOP would do this?
California tried a jungle, or at least an open, primary in 2000 that included the Presidential primary. The Republicans cried foul, as Republican Party rules say that if any non-Republican is allowed to vote in the Presidential Primary, then it is ignored and the state’s caucus/convention determines who gets the state’s delegates. What California had to do is, release two sets of votes - one that included all of them, which was treated as a straw poll, and one that included only registered Republicans, which was used to allocate the delegates. Ever since then, each voter in California is limited to voting in one party’s Presidential primary, while all of the others, including for Senators, are jungle primaries with a top-two runoff in November.
And that top-2 runoff is a bad idea. No doubt it sounded good when someone came up with it, but potentially a bad result could happen. Much better to have a 4-way RCV general election.
Maybe something that should be considered is primaries held at less than a full state level to get that “small market” thing. Imagine a primary held, say, in Genessee County, MI.
GOP voters did it, I already gave an example.
Not very often. The first six presidents were good. But then we had a really long stretch of mostly bad presidents between Jackson and Hoover. We had two great presidents (Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt), and two average ones (McKinley and Taft). Since then we seem to be doing a lot better.