The primary purpose of presidential primaries

Political Science Quarterly

Volumn 125, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 205-232

  Thompson, Dennis F ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77955080889     PISSN: 00323195     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/j.1538-165X.2010.tb00673.x     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Quoted by Austin Ranney, Curing the Mischiefs of Faction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 124-125.
2. V.O. Key, Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1964), 395.
3. Key immediately adds: "While a change in the system of making nominations does not eliminate the function of the organized minority in leading party opinion, it may enable a different minority to prevail."
4. E.E. Schattschneider, Party Government (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1942), 60; for a more recent statement in this tradition, expressing concern that the "legitimate role of organized leadership" has been pushed aside by "simple-minded calls for 'more democracy,".
5. see Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, "Tumbling Down into a Democratical Republick" (presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 12-15 April 2007), 1-43, at 16, 33.
6. Henry Jones Ford, "The Direct Primary," North American Review 190 (July 1909): 1-14, at 2, emphasis added.
7. Key, Politics, 395.
8. Achen and Bartels, "Tumbling Down," 10.
9. Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller, The Party Decides: Presidential Nominations Before and After Reforms (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 4.
10. Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK: Penguin, 1968),
11. bk. I, chaps. 6-7, 59-64.
12. bk. III, chap. 1, 101-107.
13. bk. II, chaps. 3-4, 72-78.
14. bk. IV, chap. 2, 151-154.
15. Caroline Tolbert and Peverill Squire, "Reforming the Presidential Nomination Process," PS: Political Science & Politics 42 (January 2009): 27-32, at 29.
16. Dennis F. Thompson, Restoring Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 227-242.
17. Dennis F. Thompson, "Constitutional Character: Virtues and Vices in Presidential Leadership," Presidential Studies Quarterly 40 (March 2010): 23-37.
18. Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1972), 1-16.
19. Thompson, Restoring Responsibility, 11-49.
20. John H. Aldrich, "A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns," American Political Science Review 74 (September 1980): 651-669.
21. Larry Bartels, Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).
22. John H. Aldrich, "The Invisible Primary and Its Deleterious Effects on Democratic Choice," PS: Political Science 42 (January 2009): 33-38.
23. Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides, 303-304.
24. but the selection of Obama and McCain in 2008 is an "empirical challenge to the thesis of party revival and control" (Jack Citrin and David Karol, "Introduction," in Jack Citrin and David Karol, eds., Nominating the President: Evolution and Revolution in 2008 and Beyond [Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009], 20).
25. Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides, 304.
26. Bartels, Presidential Primaries, 309-310.
27. Bruce E. Altschuler, "Selecting Presidential Nominees by National Primary," The Forum 5 (January 2008): 1-19.
28. Elsewhere I have argued for simultaneous voting in general elections, in part because they are "final" and binding on all citizens, but suggested that in primaries, other considerations may outweigh the value of simultaneity.
29. see Dennis F. Thompson, "Electoral Simultaneity: Expressing Equal Respect," Journal of Social Issues 64 (September 2008): 487-501.
30. Elaine Kamarck, Primary Politics (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2009), 174-179.
31. Rebecca B. Morton and Kenneth C. Williams, "Information Asymmetries and Simultaneous versus Sequential Voting," American Political Science Review 93 (March 1999): 51-67.
32. Steven Callander, "Bandwagons and Momentum in Sequential Voting," Review of Economic Studies 74 (July 2007): 653-684.
33. Randall E. Adkins and Andrew J. Dowdle, "How Important Are Iowa and New Hampshire to Winning Post-Reform Presidential Nominations?" Political Research Quarterly 54 (June 2001): 431-444.
34. Bartels, Presidential Primaries, 101.
35. Ibid., 107.
36. Kamarck, Primary Politics, 38-39.
37. William G. Mayer and Andrew E. Busch, The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2004).
38. William G. Mayer, "An Incremental Approach to Presidential Nomination Reform," PS: Political Science 42 (January 2009): 65-69.
39. Andrew E. Busch, "Assumptions and Realities of Presidential Primary Front-Loading," in Citrin and Karol, Nominating the President, 92.
40. Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides, 10.
41. Bartels, Presidential Primaries, 289-293.
42. Sam Stein, "Obama Camp's Memo on Clintons' Politicizing Race," The Huffington Post, 12 January 2008, accessed at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/12/obama-camps-memo-onclint_n_81205.html, 8 January 2010.
43. Beth LaMontagne, "When Simple Mistakes Go Bad: Presidential Campaigns Already Racking Up the Gaffes," Politics (Campaigns & Elections) 28 (September 2007): 14-15.
44. Transcript, Democratic Debate, Las Vegas (15 January 2008), Council on Foreign Relations, accessed at http://www.cfr.org/publication/15274, 8 January 2010.
45. Josh Gerstein, "Obama on Daschle: I take responsibility" Politico, 3 February 2009, accessed at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18344.html, 12 December 2009.
46. Robert E. DiClerico and James W. Davis, Choosing Our Choices: Debating the Presidential Nominating Process (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 39-40.
47. Mayer, "An Incremental Approach," 68.
48. Altschuler, "Selecting Presidential Nominees," 9-10.
49. Christopher Hull, Grassroots Rules: How the Iowa Caucus Helps Elect American Presidents (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
50. Michael Lewis-Beck and Peverill Squire, "Iowa: The Most Representative State?" PS: Political Science 42 (January 2009): 39-44.
51. Bella M. DePaulo, James J. Lindsay, Brian E. Malone, Laura Muhlenbruck, Kelly Charlton, and Harris Cooper, "Cues to Deception," Psychological Bulletin 129 (2003): 74-118
52. Vrij Aldert, Detecting Lies and Deceit: Pitfalls and Opportunities, 2d ed., (Malden, MA: Wiley-Interscience, 2008).
53. Kamarck, Primary Politics, 178.
54. The plan was first proposed by Robert D. Loevy, The Flawed Path to the Presidency: Unfairness and Inequality in the Presidential Selection Process (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992).
55. Kevin Esterling, Michael Neblo, and David Lazer, "Means, Motive and Opportunity in Becoming Informed about Politics: A Deliberative Field Experiment" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, 30 August 2007), accessed at http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p211854_index.html, 12 December 2009. In Grassroots Rules, Hull finds that because the Iowa process puts a high premium on strong grassroots networks, the effects seem to amplify the impact of the Internet-what he calls "e-mentum."
56. Generally, see Kamarck, Primary Politics, 155-165.
57. William G. Mayer, "Superdelegates: Reforming the Reforms Revisited," in Steven S. Smith and Melanie J. Springer, eds., Reforming the Presidential Nomination Process (Washington, DC: Brookings, 2009), 85-108.
58. Kamarck, Primary Politics, 156.
59. Ibid., 115-117, 160.
60. Salena Zito, "Burden of Proof," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 13 April 2008, quoted in Kamarck, Primary Politics, 163.
61. Markos Moulitsas, "The Rules," Daily Kos, 25 March 2008, accessed at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/25/131618/748/644/483450, 10 January 2010.
62. DiClerico and Davis, Choosing Our Choices, 18-19.
63. Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Rule 12J and 11J (Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee, 19 August 2006), 14.
64. Key, Politics, 411.
65. "DNC Democratic Change Commission Co-Chairs Statements on the Democratic Change Commission's Recommendations," 30 December 2009, accessed at http://blog.4president.org/2012/2009/12/dnc-democratic-change-commission-cochairs-statements-on-the-democratic-change-commissionsrecommenda.html, 10 January 2010.
66. Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Rule 20.C1 (Washington, DC: Democratic National Committee, 19 August 2006), 20.
67. Kamarck, Primary Politics, 4.
68. the "story of the modern nomination system" can be told by showing how presidential candidates "regard structure strategically, how they attempt to shape the system to their advantage."
69. David Mark, Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), 205.
70. Steven A. Holmes, "After Campaigning on Candor, McCain Admits He Lacked It on Confederate Flag Issue," The New York Times, 20 April 2000.
71. Marion Just, Tami Buhr, and Ann Crigler, "Shifting the Balance: Journalist versus Candidate Communication in the 1996 Presidential Campaign," in Larry M. Bartels and Lynn Vavreck, eds., Campaign Reform (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 138.
72. Larry M. Bartels,"Campaign Quality: Standards for Evaluation, Benchmarks for Reform," in Bartels and Vavreck, eds., Campaign Reform, 16.
73. Larry M. Bartels, Henry E. Brady, Bruce Buchanan, Charles H. Franklin, John G. Geer, Shanto Iyengar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Marion R. Just, Stanley Kelly, Jr., Thomas E. Mann, Samuel L. Popkin, Daron Shaw, Lynn Vavreck, and John R. Zaller, "Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence: Report of the Task Force on Campaign Reform," in Bartels and Vavreck, eds., Campaign Reform, 213-214.
74. notice, however, that the task force is careful to point out some benefits of horse race coverage, 215. A study of media coverage of primaries from 1912 through 2000 concluded that the tendencies to cover the primaries as a "dramatic conflict or horse race" and to focus on the personal traits of the candidate were present consistently throughout the period.not new in the age of television."
75. [Kathleen E. Kendall, Communication in Presidential Primaries (Westport CT: Praeger, 2000), 204].
76. The trend is worldwide, but more pronounced in the United States: Fritz Plasser and Gunder Plasser, Global Political Campaigning (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 71.
77. the trend was temporarily reversed in the U.S. presidential campaign of 1996; because the outcome was so predictable, the press wrote more about substance (Just, Buhr, and Crigler, "Shifting the Balance," 138).
78. Ironically, it seems that campaign discussion contains more substance when it is least likely to affect the outcome.
79. Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter, "How Television Covers the Presidential Nomination Process," in William Mayer, ed., The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2008 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), 79-80.
80. David Broder, "1980 GOP Presidential Field Is Already Crowded," The Washington Post, 21 January 1979.
81. (quoted by Cohen, Karol, Noel, and Zaller, The Party Decides, 194).
82. Bartels, Presidential Primaries, 35.
83. Thomas Patterson, Out of Order (New York: Knopf, 1993), 20, 70.
84. Bartels et al., "Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence," 214-215.
85. Patterson, Out of Order.
86. Bartels, "Campaign Quality," 17-19, 54.
87. Bartels notes that differential effects of "game schemas" compared to "policy schemas" in coverage during the campaign may be minimal, and that definitively distinguishing the separate effects of these types of coverage is not possible.
88. Just, Buhr, and Crigler, "Shifting the Balance," 138-139.
89. Richard Johnston, Andre Blais, Henry Brady, and Jean Crete, Letting the People Decide: The Dynamics of Canadian Elections (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 10-11.
90. Johnston, Blais, Brady, and Crete, Letting the People Decide, 10-11, and the citations therein.
91. Bartels et al, "Campaign Reform: Insights and Evidence," 241 n17.
92. one study found that "candidate debates seem to reduce rather than increase prospective voters' knowledge of the candidates'issue stands".
93. Bartels, "Campaign Quality," 56.
94. William L. Benoit, Glenn J. Hansen, and Rebecca M. Verser, "A Meta-analysis of the Effects of Viewing U.S. Presidential Debates," Communication Monographs 70 (December 2003), 335-350.
95. Ibid., 347, 343-344.
96. William L. Benoit, P.M. Pier, LeAnn M. Brazeal, John P. McHale, Andrew Klyukovski, and David Airne, The Primary Decision: A Functional Analysis of Debates in Presidential Primaries (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), 123-124, 131.
97. Benoit et al., The Primary Decision, 344, 346.
98. Kendall, Communication in Presidential Primaries, 88.
99. CNN, Transcripts, "New Hampshire Presidential Candidates Debate," 3 June 2007, accessed at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/03/se.01.html.
100. Referring to how Obama learned from his poor performance at a candidate forum and other joint appearances, David Axelrod observed that "it took a while to figure out how to swim. As bright and as gifted as he is.he went through a period that was very difficult. Little by little he began to learn the rhythm and the pace and the requirements.
101. (Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, The Battle for America 2008 [New York: Viking 2009], 74).