If Americans really want a chief executive whose experience and leadership have been clearly demonstrated, we should abandon the constitutional separation of powers and adopt parliamentary government. Parliamentary party leaders who become prime ministers generally have exercised party leadership for a number of years before acquiring the power to govern.
The American system is very unlikely to choose leaders with comparable experience. In fact, national experience has proven to be more of a liability than an asset. Governors have been elected far more frequently than congressional leaders. The last twelve presidential elections are instructive: In three, a present or former governor defeated an incumbent president. In four, the losing candidate was a Senator; in three more the loser was a former Senator now serving as Vice President, and in still another a former Senator who had previously served as Vice President. In only one of the past twelve elections has the losing candidate not served in national office.
In the most remote of these elections, 1960, Senator John Kennedy was elected against Vice President and former Senator Richard Nixon, and it was only the second time in American history that a sitting Senator was elected President. It is an understatement to state that neither was a party leader. Kennedy, seriously but secretly ailing, had no real Senate record. The first Senator ever directly elected as president was Warren Harding in 1920, a nonentity utterly without power or influence in Congress. Ironically, when a desperate Republican Party nominated Senate majority leader Robert Dole in 1996, he resigned from the Senate in order to run, and went on to suffer a staggering defeat.
When the Republicans had the opportunity in 1952 to choose a national leader so identified with party ideals that Senator Robert Taft was affectionately dubbed “Mr. Republican,” it chose instead to nominate General Dwight Eisenhower, whose party affiliation was unknown to the public until shortly before his selection. The Democrats passed by their incumbent vice president, Alben Barkley, Senate leader Robert Russell, and well-known Senator Estes Kefauver to choose little-known Governor Adlai Stevenson. When the Republicans did choose nationally-known Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964, he suffered the worst defeat of any presidential candidate in the party’s history.
The most successful candidates in the recent past have been unemployed politicians (Nixon, Carter, Reagan), a vice president best known at the time for being “out of the loop” on the Iran-Contra crisis (Bush I), the governor of a very poor state (Clinton) and the governor of a state which has the constitutionally least powerful governor (Bush II). There were national leaders in all of those elections who would have come to the presidency with impressive experience. They were not chosen.
Clearly, neither much-experienced maverick Senator McCain, less experienced Senator Clinton nor little experienced Senator Obama is a Senate leader. A half-dozen or more members of the Senate in both parties have earned leadership roles, but none will be their party’s nominee. (Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who sought to be the Democratic candidate, is an example.)
What does experience tell us about a future president? The truth is that experience doesn’t tell us much about how the next president will exercise legislative leadership, share or usurp power, perceive and promote America’s place in the world, and respond to unanticipated events. In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office without any clear idea of how he would cope with the deepening economic depression. What he did was begin a “hundred days” of frantic activity to provide short-term relief for the jobless and minimally regulate business. (In fact, the long-term effects of the National Industrial Recovery Act and the Agricultural Adjustment Act were to concentrate industry and agriculture, not to make them more competitive.) For years (until the beginning of World War II in Europe), FDR’s policies did not reverse the Depression, but they did revive hope. They came to represent the beginning of the very modest American not-quite-welfare state. Most recently, Texas Governor George W. Bush’s bipartisan cooperation with Democratic state legislators was an experience later contradicted by his presidency.
In 2008, John McCain’s candidacy of staying the course in Iran is, whether he wishes it or not, a reaffirmation of the Bush presidency: Respice. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy of thirty-five years of experience, whether she wishes it or not, a revival of the New Democratic liberalism of her husband’s presidency: Adspice. Barack Obama’s candidacy of articulating rarely expressed hope, is – and he wishes it to be – a platform of promise: Prospice. As of this date, this may be an election, like FDR’s in 1932 and Kennedy’s in 1960, in which hope wins. It succeeded politically and psychologically in Roosevelt’s presidency and was aborted in Kennedy’s (although it survived in the JFK legend). As has been often true in the past, promises may not be fulfilled, but it now appears likely that most voters will find the alternatives to be much more unpromising.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
HAS THE PRIMARY PROCESS PROVED ITS MERIT IN 2008?
Over the last nine presidential elections, the primary-caucus method of nominating candidates has often failed to choose each party’s strongest candidate. The major parties knew the system was flawed, leading to different methods of nomination and allocation of delegates between the two parties and among the states. Frustrated by the ability of factions unallied with the party organization to win the nominations of George McGovern in 1972 and Jimmy Carter in 1976, the Democrats in 1984 created superdelegates, who are members of Congress and other party leaders not bound to any candidate, but more likely to support the establishment choice against insurgents. What would happen if the superdelegates influence the choice of a nominee other than the plurality winner in the primaries? Until now, the superdelegates have been superfluous delegates, because they have not influenced the party’s nomination.
The rationale for the primary system is that it increases the public’s role in the process. Nevertheless, close to one-half of all voting-age citizens failed to vote in presidential elections. For most Americans, the presidential primary was one more election (and a difficult one to understand) in a nation which has more elections and fewer voters in relation to population than other industrial democracies.
The percentage of adult citizens voting in recent national elections has been well over 8o percent in West Germany, New Zealand, and France, over 75 in Canada, Great Britain, and Japan, and just barely 50 percent in the U.S. Other representative governments do not conduct elections to choose candidates. Critics argue that, to increase turnout, we should deal with the causes of non-voting, not increase the number of elections in which a large proportion of the electorate will not participate. In the nine presidential elections since reform, the highest turnout was 55.3 percent of potential voters in 1992, the lowest 49 percent in 1996. By contrast, turnout was never below 60 percent in the five previous elections.
For the party in power, the primary process has until now been little more than a reaffirmation of the power of the governing party’s hierarchy. In the nine elections since the primary reforms, every presidential candidate of the party in power has been either the incumbent or his vice president. For the party out of power, the nomination was often won by a candidate with a minority of primary votes. McGovern received barely 25 percent in 1972 (the first election in which the primaries determined the choice of the candidates), Carter 39 percent in 1976, Mondale 38 percent in 1984, and Dukakis 43 percent in 1988. Even those figures exaggerate their primary support, because they include larger proportions after other contenders left the race. Even incumbents sometimes barely eked out a majority. Ford received 53 percent in the 1976 primaries and Carter 51 percent in 1980, almost certain signs that they faced defeat in the election.
Primary voters tend to vote for their first choice, not necessarily their party’s best choice. That would be not the single most popular candidate but the one least unacceptable to the party faithful, independents, and dissident members of the other party. At its best, the old-fashioned conventions of party leaders and office-holders achieved that, because they wanted nothing so much as a winner. By contrast, the primary system reflected the judgment of a small proportion of the electorate from a few atypical states, required vast amounts of money to finance a campaign, made more difficult the candidacy of experienced members of Congress, diminished the importance of the party organization greatly reduced the relevance of the national convention, and has been repeatedly reformed by party commissions in election years without making it more likely to result in the selection of the strongest candidate within each party.
These are powerful arguments against the method of presidential nomination employed in the past nine elections, except for the fact that they seem contradicted by this year’s nomination process. Neither party had an obvious successor, the field seemed – or over time came to seem -- wide open and narrowed only as voters expressed their preferences, both parties will nominate an incumbent Senator (leading to only the third election in which a sitting Senator is elected as president), and the candidates have aroused strong support among voters who have not played a prominent role in the past.
It is almost certain that, in the absence of the primary system, the Republican Party would have chosen someone other than Senator John McCain, whose opposition to George W. Bush in 2000, support for campaign reform, and lack of support within the party’s congressional leadership would have doomed his candidacy. It is probable that several Governors, ex-Governors and other members of Congress would have competed for both parties’ nomination. The groundswell of support for Obama would never have taken place, and he most certainly would not have been chosen as the Democratic candidate.
The primary process has had unprecedented success in inspiring participation and choosing highly regarded candidates. Barring some unexpected event, the turnout this November is likely to far exceed that of recent elections, and this is entirely attributable to the campaign that has been waged until now. The flaws remain. The process takes place too long before the election. The amount of money it takes to compete is obscene and violates a basic premise of the democratic process. The ordering of the primaries and caucuses is arbitrary, creating unforeseen and irrational advantages for one or another candidate. And yet…this time very capable candidates have emerged.
* * *
There remains at this writing a small possibility that the primary process can fail. If, despite a national Obama plurality in primary and caucus votes and elected delegates, Clinton decisively wins the Texas and Ohio primaries, and then wins the Democratic nomination by winning the support of a sufficient number of superdelegates, including a strategy of seating the now-barred Florida and Michigan delegates, the Democrats will bitterly divide, possibly leading to their defeat in the presidential election, and almost certainly leading to radical reform in the nomination process.
The rationale for the primary system is that it increases the public’s role in the process. Nevertheless, close to one-half of all voting-age citizens failed to vote in presidential elections. For most Americans, the presidential primary was one more election (and a difficult one to understand) in a nation which has more elections and fewer voters in relation to population than other industrial democracies.
The percentage of adult citizens voting in recent national elections has been well over 8o percent in West Germany, New Zealand, and France, over 75 in Canada, Great Britain, and Japan, and just barely 50 percent in the U.S. Other representative governments do not conduct elections to choose candidates. Critics argue that, to increase turnout, we should deal with the causes of non-voting, not increase the number of elections in which a large proportion of the electorate will not participate. In the nine presidential elections since reform, the highest turnout was 55.3 percent of potential voters in 1992, the lowest 49 percent in 1996. By contrast, turnout was never below 60 percent in the five previous elections.
For the party in power, the primary process has until now been little more than a reaffirmation of the power of the governing party’s hierarchy. In the nine elections since the primary reforms, every presidential candidate of the party in power has been either the incumbent or his vice president. For the party out of power, the nomination was often won by a candidate with a minority of primary votes. McGovern received barely 25 percent in 1972 (the first election in which the primaries determined the choice of the candidates), Carter 39 percent in 1976, Mondale 38 percent in 1984, and Dukakis 43 percent in 1988. Even those figures exaggerate their primary support, because they include larger proportions after other contenders left the race. Even incumbents sometimes barely eked out a majority. Ford received 53 percent in the 1976 primaries and Carter 51 percent in 1980, almost certain signs that they faced defeat in the election.
Primary voters tend to vote for their first choice, not necessarily their party’s best choice. That would be not the single most popular candidate but the one least unacceptable to the party faithful, independents, and dissident members of the other party. At its best, the old-fashioned conventions of party leaders and office-holders achieved that, because they wanted nothing so much as a winner. By contrast, the primary system reflected the judgment of a small proportion of the electorate from a few atypical states, required vast amounts of money to finance a campaign, made more difficult the candidacy of experienced members of Congress, diminished the importance of the party organization greatly reduced the relevance of the national convention, and has been repeatedly reformed by party commissions in election years without making it more likely to result in the selection of the strongest candidate within each party.
These are powerful arguments against the method of presidential nomination employed in the past nine elections, except for the fact that they seem contradicted by this year’s nomination process. Neither party had an obvious successor, the field seemed – or over time came to seem -- wide open and narrowed only as voters expressed their preferences, both parties will nominate an incumbent Senator (leading to only the third election in which a sitting Senator is elected as president), and the candidates have aroused strong support among voters who have not played a prominent role in the past.
It is almost certain that, in the absence of the primary system, the Republican Party would have chosen someone other than Senator John McCain, whose opposition to George W. Bush in 2000, support for campaign reform, and lack of support within the party’s congressional leadership would have doomed his candidacy. It is probable that several Governors, ex-Governors and other members of Congress would have competed for both parties’ nomination. The groundswell of support for Obama would never have taken place, and he most certainly would not have been chosen as the Democratic candidate.
The primary process has had unprecedented success in inspiring participation and choosing highly regarded candidates. Barring some unexpected event, the turnout this November is likely to far exceed that of recent elections, and this is entirely attributable to the campaign that has been waged until now. The flaws remain. The process takes place too long before the election. The amount of money it takes to compete is obscene and violates a basic premise of the democratic process. The ordering of the primaries and caucuses is arbitrary, creating unforeseen and irrational advantages for one or another candidate. And yet…this time very capable candidates have emerged.
* * *
There remains at this writing a small possibility that the primary process can fail. If, despite a national Obama plurality in primary and caucus votes and elected delegates, Clinton decisively wins the Texas and Ohio primaries, and then wins the Democratic nomination by winning the support of a sufficient number of superdelegates, including a strategy of seating the now-barred Florida and Michigan delegates, the Democrats will bitterly divide, possibly leading to their defeat in the presidential election, and almost certainly leading to radical reform in the nomination process.
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