MADISON’S ERROR: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION
John Zaller
James Madison famously argued in Federalist 10 that political parties would be
unlikely to form in an “extended Republic” like the United States because factional
leaders would be too scattered “to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with
each other.”
This argument, often considered one of Madison’s most important, was quickly
proven wrong. Far flung political activists discovered each other in the 1790s, learned to
cooperate in a national political party, and carried the election of 1800 for their candidate,
Thomas Jefferson. The nominees of a national political party have won every
presidential election since then except one, the election of 1824.
Madison’s error, as I argue in this paper, was to underestimate how increases in
political communication could increase possibilities for political coordination even in a
very large country. He was surely right that geographic distance is an impediment to
political coordination, but wrong about how little communication is necessary for
motivated elites to overcome it. A few hundred mostly weekly community papers, some
only broad sheets, wrecked his grand argument.
The next two centuries brought immense additional increases in the content and reach
of political communication. Yet it is not obvious that, as regards presidential selection,
this growth made as much difference as the newspaper expansion of the 1790s. From
then until now, voters have chosen between just two presidential candidates, party
insiders have mostly dominated the selection of these candidates, and presidential
campaigns have featured a low brow mix of personality, partisanship, and blame game
politics over national conditions. As argued below, even the communication expansion
of the last two decades -- email, cable TV, Internet blogs and news -- has made no
important difference in how presidents are selected. Thus, the lesson since the 1790s is
that even vast amounts of political communication may not matter if, as much research
shows, most citizens lack the motivation to monitor it.
These are bold arguments for a short conference paper. Proving them is not a realistic
possibility. I do, however, aspire to cogent analysis based on a fair selection of evidence.
Most of the evidence, I must add, is lifted from a larger study, The Party Decides:
Presidential Nominations Before and After Reform, which is co-authored by Marty
Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel and myself. Reliance on evidence from this book,
which traces the history of parties and presidential nominations, is so great that Cohen,
Karol, and Noel should be considered silent co-authors of this paper.
DEFEAT OF THE FRAMERS’ PLAN OF PRESIDENTIAL SELECTION
The Framers of the Constitution greatly feared the subversive effect of political
parties and sought to create institutions that would impede their formation and limit
damage if they did form. “A Constitution against parties” was the way Richard
Hofstadter put it.
The presidency was the most obvious target for capture by a majority coalition and
was therefore the object of special attention by the Framers. “No problem caused more
perplexity for the delegates than that of determining how the President should be
elected,” writes Richard McCormick. “They wanted a method that would be impervious
to faction, intrigue, or any unwholesome form of manipulation; a method that would defy
[as they saw it] politicization.” 1 Through most of the convention, delegates worked with
a plan for Congress to choose the president. But near the end of their deliberations, they
reconsidered. “The candidate would intrigue with the Legislature, would derive his
appointment from the predominant faction, and be apt to render his administration
subservient to its views, argued Madison.” 2 Election by Congress could thus present a
convenient opportunity for the nation’s far-flung factional interests to combine into a
majority faction. So, in keeping with Madison’s idea about the advantages of an
“extended republic,” their solution was to force the choice of president to be made, as far
as possible, by independent actors scattered around the country and unable to coordinate
with one another. Counting heavily on the slow mail service of the day, the plan was as
follows: Each state would pick presidential Electors who would meet in their respective
states where they would all cast their ballots on the same day. Results would be sent
under seal to President of the Senate, who would open and tally them in the presence of
the assembled Congress. If any candidate had an absolute majority in the Electoral
College, he would become president. But with each state deciding independently, no
candidate might get a majority. In these cases, Congress would pick the winner from
among the top five finishers -- and would do so immediately after the state votes were
counted, so that legislators would have no time to form coalitions. 3 With party coalitions
unable (as it was hoped) to organize, Congress would have no basis for choice other than
the personal character and ability of the candidates. “It is impossible,” declared one
delegate, “for human ingenuity to devise any mode of election better calculated to
1
2
3
The Presidential Game, Oxford, 1982, p. 24.
McCormick, p. 19.
The procedure had additional features that are not relevant to this discussion.
exclude undue influence.” 4
In this rendering of an oft-told tale, the Framers’ plan to defeat party formation
depended on communication -- or, rather, lack of communication. They could imagine
party formation within a legislative assembly, in which everyone would be in close
contact with one another, but not across the far corners of a large country in which
everyone cast his ballot on the same day.
NEWSPAPERS AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION
A fierce partisan struggle developed in Congress in the first months of the
Washington administration, but like a tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it, the
first struggles had little impact on national opinion because no newspaper reported it in
much detail. But that changed in 1791 when Thomas Jefferson recruited a firebrand
editor to run a paper giving the Republican view of events. This paper lasted only two
years, but a second Republican paper emerged on its own -- that is, independent of
Jefferson and other office holders -- and built a nationwide circulation. Meanwhile, the
older Gazette of the United States became more openly pro-Federalist. Partisan
vituperation now spread across the nation.
Federalist papers were initially more numerous, but, in a decade of rapid circulation
growth, Republican newspapers came to predominate. 5 Republican editors were also
more attuned to electoral politics. 6 As a result, observers agree that the surge in partisan
journalism was a huge boon to the Republicans. “The newspapers are an overmatch for
any Government,” complained a disgruntled Federalist after Jefferson won the election of
4
5
6
McCormick, p. 26.
Pasley, p. 203.
Pasley, pp. 229-36.
1800. “The Jacobins [sic] owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine.” 7
A newspaper was in this period the organ of its editor-printer. According to a study
by historian Jeffrey Pasley, they were typically men of humble birth, bookish inclination,
and a steely commitment to “equal liberty.” The job of 18th century editor was never
lucrative, and embracing Republican politics in the 1790s made it less so. Partisan
editors risked loss of ad revenue from Federalist merchants, physical abuse at the hands
of pro-government thugs, and, in the late 1790s, prosecution under the Sedition Act of
1798. Yet the number of Republican papers substantially increased as the 1800 election
approached. “Almost all of the post-Sedition Act papers were working parts of the
Republican Party from their inception,” writes Pasley. 8
Among the politicians of the day, Jefferson was perhaps the most active in
encouraging the Republican press, channeling both money and ideas to favorite editors.
Some other Republican office holders did so as well. However, Pasley asserts that “the
phenomenal growth of the Republican press cannot be attributed to the scattered, episodic
efforts of the office holding gentry, whether in person or by proxy. At the heart of it was
a new breed of printer, a group of artisan politicians...” 9 In other words, the newspaper
expansion was not a case of communication driving politics, but of partisan politics
driving communication.
The Republican editors worked together, creating a national intelligence network for
good ideas and arguments. “An especially powerful political essay or paragraph could
spread through the country in a matter of weeks, and an especially well-executed
7
8
9
Cunningham, p. 167.
Pasley. 167.
P. 161-2.
newspaper could gain national, target exposure far beyond its own circulation.” 10
The national circulation of leading tracts provided the basis for the emergence of a set
of common complaints about the Washington administration and a common set of
remedies -- in short, an ideology. Elements of the ideology, stressing individual liberty
and limited government, had been present in the debates over the Constitution. But they
now reached a wider, less rarified audience and placed more emphasis on popular
sovereignty and less on the need to prevent the formation of majority factions. The new
ideology came to be known as Republicanism.
As partisan newspapers became widespread, so did activist politics. By activist
politics I mean non-office holding citizens working to affect political outcomes. The
first glimmering came in 1793 with the formation of two so-called Democratic clubs in
Philadelphia. Dozens more clubs followed across the country. Their agenda was the core
anti-Hamiltonian, pro-Republican agenda that had developed in the new partisan press,
with an especially strong emphasis on popular sovereignty.
The main stated purpose of the clubs was to discuss issues of the day and increase
public awareness of them. In practice, this meant criticizing not only the Federalist Party,
but also Washington, a national hero. Equally bold, the clubs openly praised the French
Revolution. They celebrated its victories, addressed one another in the French manner as
citizen, and added the French tricolore to their ordinary dress.
At its peak, the movement consisted of some 40 to 50 clubs around the country.
Given that the House of Representatives had only 65 congressional districts, this was a
large number. And the clubs took a keen interest in what their state and national
10
Pasley, p. 173.
legislators did. Historian Eugene Link reports “hundreds of ... instances in which
societies, individually and collectively, brought pressure to bear in legislative halls.
Doubtless during their regular meetings the question of the actions elected representatives
took was the most time-consuming as well as the paramount issue in most of the clubs.” 11
In his review of club activities, historian William Miller (1939) also notes six cases in
which the clubs became active in congressional elections and suggests there were many
others. “Wherever there was a Democratic Society, the [electoral] fight was a hard one
for the federalists. For the first time they faced an organization, disciplined, practical,
aflame with enthusiasm.” 12 Later historiography is more cautious about the electoral
involvement of the democratic societies. The clubs often criticized congressmen with
whom they disagreed and fought some of them in elections, but there is no statistical
evidence that they were an influence in electoral politics. 13
Partisan editors and citizen activists became, as we shall see in a moment, pillars of
the new Republican Party. But what of office holders? It is hard to imagine a political
universe in which opposition politicians stand by while the elements of a mass party
gather strength. And, in fact, they did not stand by. The letters of Madison, Jefferson
and other major figures are full of discussions on how to behave for maximum political
11
The Democratic Republican Societies, 1790-1800. Columbia University Press, 1942,
p. 150.
12
The quote is from Claude Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, 1925, as cited with
approval by Miller, p.140, “The fruits of Republican organization,” Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 63.
13
Simply to vote a resolution against a member of Congress was considered
illegitimate. Asked one federalist:
Have you not chosen a man to represent your city in the House of Representatives? Have
you not delegated your powers irrevocably until the period expires for which he was
elected? Can you then instruct him? No, you have no such right. You have only the
right, at the end of two years, if he displeases you, to have him out and elect another.
impact. But strategic behavior is not the same as partisan organization. On that score,
historian Sean Wilentz observes in Rise of American Democracy that the activities of
Jefferson, Madison and others in the early 1790s mainly involved
... the cooperation of a few leading gentlemen who would handle their affairs
discreetly, more like diplomats than grubby politicians.
Ideas about building permanent electoral machinery that might fuse the
national leadership with the voters were nearly as alien to the Republican
leaders as they were to Federalists. 14
The election of 1796 brought the first clear examples of what can be called party
activity. Electioneering focused on an electoral device that few contemporary Americans
understand, the ballot ticket. Voters would write the names of the candidates they
supported on a “ticket” and bring it to the polling place. Tickets were necessary because
election officials did not print ballots; they only provided a box in which to collect them.
Getting information about tickets to a mostly rural electorate at this early stage of the
newspaper expansion was, however, a big challenge. A Philadelphia hatter and
Democratic Club member named John Smith provides the following account of his
efforts to disseminate the names of party-designated Electors during the 1796 presidential
election:
I undertook and performed a journey of 600 miles.... The object I had solely
in view was to make Mr. Jefferson President.... For upwards of three weeks I
was out, there was not one day I was not on horse back before the sun rose, nor
put up at night to till after it set. In that time, I held 18 public meetings, making
it a practice at night to pay some person immediately to go through the
neighborhood [neighborhoods were more spread out in those days] and notify
the people to attend that night -- at which respective meetings I addressed
14
P. 50.
myself to them in a zealous language. [J. of Early Republic, 1996, p. 554]
By this means, he and others distributed some 50,000 hand-written ballots to towns
and villages around Pennsylvania. Such energetic activity was unusual in 1796. In most
of the country, the election still worked as quietly as it had in Washington’s two
elections.
The level of insurgent effort was dramatically higher in 1800, but the design of the
Constitution continued to hinder party organization. In four states, voters directly chose
Electors to the Electoral College, naming as many Electors on their ballot as their state
had votes. In the other states, where legislatures chose the Electors, voters could affect
the presidential race only by casting ballots for state legislators committed to their
presidential candidate. Getting often isolated pockets of voters to coordinate on these
tasks was, as the Framers intended, difficult. In Philadelphia, for example, Republican
sympathizers, including carry-overs from club days, appointed committees in each county
and charged them to form slates. In Bucks County, the committee kicked off its activity
with the following public notice in a newspaper:
The Republican committee have projected, three general meetings of the
friends of freedom in this county, to be held previously to the ensuing general
election; viz. one at Swift’s tavern, in Middleton township on Sunday the 16th
inst., one at Benner’s tavern, in Rockhill township on Saturday the 16th inst.,
and one at Addis’s tavern in Buckingham township on Saturday the 13th of
September next. The citizens in general to meet about 11, and the members of
the committee positively by 10 o’clock of each day.
The object of these meetings is, to collect information respecting the persons
proper to be chosen to the several elective offices, and generally to condense
the rays of political light and reflect them strongly on all around (emphasis
added). 15
In New Jersey, a state with no prior tradition of Republican organization, two
subscribers to the Newark Centinel of Freedom sent a lengthy letter to the newspaper in
April 1800 to propose a statewide plan of township and county meetings to form slates. 16
In the next few months, the newspaper “was filled with reports of Republican meetings at
which committees were appointed in accordance with the blueprint for Republican
organization published earlier in the Centinel, and by the end of the summer, Republican
township committees had made their appearance in most of the counties of the state,”
after which county level meetings were held to finalize the slates. 17
Ticket-making movements, typically centered in a local newspaper, appeared from
Massachusetts to Georgia. The people who made the tickets, prominently including
former members of Democratic clubs, were animated by the common ideology of
Republicanism, whose proximate source was also the local newspaper. By embracing
Republicanism, party organizers acted locally while thinking nationally
The new party tickets were highly effective. As soon as they appeared, the names
they proposed took almost all offices as voters fell quickly into the habit of party voting
for offices from Presidential Elector to state legislature. Methods, however, were
different in different states. In New York, where the state legislature chose the
presidential electors, the balance of power between the Federalist and Republican
factions depended on legislative elections in New York City. This meant that the voters
of New York City chose between slates of state legislators committed either to Jefferson
15
Cited in Cunningham, p. 160.
Since the letter was anonymous, it could have been send by an office holder, but, if
so, they were not Republican office holders, since all of New Jersey’s federal office
holders were at that time Federalist.
17
Cunningham, p. 158.
16
or Adams. When the Jefferson slate won, the news spread quickly and affected strategy
in other states.
A party is usually defined as a coalition of elites seeking to gain control of
government by legal means. If we set aside the requirement for legal means, the colonywide efforts that led to the Constitution were a coalition that sought to gain control of
government and, as such, the nation’s first national party. This party came together
through the personal correspondence of its well-born leaders and a national convention in
Philadelphia in 1787. What the Jeffersonian Republican party achieved was more
difficult -- the creation of a national coalition among political leaders who were not in
personal contact with one another and did not enjoy benefit of a national convention to
launch their enterprise. It is true that Jefferson was formally nominated by a
congressional caucus in Washington, but the New York City elections and much else had
already occurred by that time. Much of the Jeffersonian Republican party was assembled
in what we night today call the virtual world of newspaper politics.
It may be useful to distinguish three stages in this development. The first was the
development of a set of complaints and remedies that could unite the opponents of the
Federalist Party from Maine and New York to Tennessee and Georgia. The second was
emergence of activist opposition to the Federalist party, beginning with the Democratic
Clubs of the middle 1790s and continuing through the formation of local party
committees. The third was the creation of a mass public opinion prepared to support a
Republican ticket as a means of defeating the incumbent administration. Madison was
not wrong to believe that it would be difficult to achieve all this in a nation as large as the
United States. His error was to underestimate how political activists could use
impersonal political communication to overcome the impediment of geographic size.
It is worth noting that, in Pasley’s account, the newspaper expansion that made
possible the rise of the Republican party was not a case of communication driving
politics. Nor does improvement in printing technology play a large role in his account.
Rather, newspaper expansion was the project of a class of partisan editors whose aim was
to build support for the emerging Republican ideology. The main story, thus, is one of
politics driving communication rather than vice versa.
PARTIES AND VOTERS
The formation of the Republican Party in the 1790s has some earmarks of a mass
movement. Yet the citizens who crowded into Swift’s tavern or who answered the call of
the New Jersey Centinel to form town committees or who wrote tracts that collectively
defined Republican ideology were not particularly large groups. They are best
understood as political activists. Their power came not from their own numbers, but
from the fact that they organized politics for voters willing to follow their lead.
The election of 1800, which began with the New York City elections in April and
continued through the fall, was not a high point in American political culture. [Describe
the 1800 campaign -- parades, barbecues, Sally Henning, etc. ]
In these basic respects, American electoral democracy seems to have changed
relatively little in the last two centuries. Party activists still organize politics and voters
still accept their agenda-setting as legitimate. The general campaign phase of the
presidential selection process is perhaps a little less raucous, but also little more highminded or informative. The distance from Sally Hennings to Swift Boat Veterans for
Truth does not seem so great.
The relationship between parties and voters in presidential nominations requires
careful assessment. Certainly, the means by which parties make nominations have
changed dramatically. The national party convention replaced the congressional caucus
that nominated Jefferson, thus admitting a wider range of players into presidential
nominations. Early in the 20th century, presidential primaries gave voters in some states
a say in choosing convention delegates, widening participation still further. Finally,
following the McGovern-Fraser reforms of the 1970s, presidential primaries and open
caucus became the dominant means of selecting delegates to the party nominating
conventions. Ordinary voters, casting ballots in state-regulated caucuses or primaries,
now determined party nominees.
The increase in primaries and caucuses has been accompanied by an increase in
media coverage of pre-primary politicking, which gives voters every chance to cast
informed ballots. In recent contests, Internet news and blogs have enthusiastically joined
pre-primary reporting. On the surface, this seems a lot like democracy.
Upon closer examination, however, the impression fades. Until 1968, only about a
quarter of states had primaries, and many of these were either advisory to party leaders or
controlled by a “favorite son” of the state party. In 1952 and 1968, insurgents Estes
Kefauver and Eugene McCarthy dominated Democratic primaries, only to lose the
nominations to Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey, who entered no primaries.
Even in the current system, which guarantees voter control over selection of most
convention delegates, it is not clear that voters really run the show. For one thing, they
are woefully uninformed. Primary voters learn about -- and then choose between -- the
leading candidates, usually without knowing anything about the larger field or much
about the candidates they do support (Patterson, 1980). Heavy media coverage might be
expected to fill the information gap, but as Henry Brady and Richard Johnson observe,
The real problem with primaries is … [citizens] learn too slowly about every
aspect of the candidates except their viability. And one of the major reasons that
citizens learn quickly about viability is the enormous emphasis placed on the
horse race by the media, especially right after the Iowa caucuses and the New
Hampshire primary (184).
Media coverage has also on occasion created a kind of momentum in which a candidate
can coast to nomination simply because he has done better than expected in early contests
(Bartels, 1988).
In the nomination contests that immediately followed the McGovern-Fraser reforms,
the two Democratic standard bearers were George McGovern and Jimmy Carter, both of
whom defeated the party establishment to win nomination by winning state primary and
caucus elections. For these nominations, it is hard to deny that the power of party
insiders to dictate nominees was held at bay. Subsequent contests, however, produced a
different pattern. As Bill Mayer observed in 2004,
Thirty years after a series of reforms that were supposed to “open up the parties”
and “level the playing field,” the American presidential nominating process has
become, if anything, even more hostile to outsiders than the system that preceded
it. If the 1996 nomination contests went a considerable way towards establishing
this proposition, the 2000 races should remove any lingering doubt (p. 12).
Most recently, Cohen, Karol, Noel and Zaller argue in The Party Decides that party
insiders -- by which they mean party officials, interest group leaders, and activists -- have
largely re-gained control of the reformed nomination process. A part of their evidence is
presented in Figure 1. Based on a tally of public endorsements by various party leaders
and activists, Cohen et al. find that -- controlling for fund-raising, media coverage, and
even the last pre-Iowa national poll -- insider endorsements are the most important
determinant of outcomes of the state primaries and caucuses. The major caveat on this
conclusion is that the party insiders must be able to agree among themselves. When, as
in the current Republican contest, party insiders cannot agree, the candidate who can
generate the right combination of popular appeal, fund-raising, media savvy, and
campaign skill has an open road to the nomination -- a victory, one can argue, for the
voters who ultimately pick the winner.
Yet, as shown in Figure 1, party leaders can usually agree on a preferred candidate,
and when they can, they prevail. Why exactly insiders prevail in a system in which
ordinary voters possess the formal power of nomination is an interesting question. One
part of the answer, according to Cohen et al., is that party insiders collectively control a
large fraction of they money, expertise, and volunteer labor that candidates need in order
to be successful in the primaries. Another and perhaps more important part of the
answer is the persuasive impact of party endorsements on the party rank-and-file.
Endorsements, that is, are a cue that many primary voters are pleased to take. As Cohen
et al. write:
We suppose that a national buzz develops around the insider favorite, as millions of
partisans get the message from party officials, activists, and interest group leaders
that “George W. Bush is our guy in this contest” or (perhaps) “Hillary Clinton is
our gal.”
This argument would not be persuasive if there were much evidence that voters have
strong views on or great interest in presidential nominations. But there isn’t. For
example, in the 2000 Iowa caucuses, in which both parties had close contests for open
nominations, total turnout in both parties’ caucuses was only 6.8 percent. 18 In the New
Hampshire primary in that year, total turnout was 44 percent. In South Carolina, another
critical early primary in 2000, total turnout was only 20 percent. As Cohen et al.
comment:
An electorate that is not very interested, not very well informed, and attracted to
candidates simply because the candidates are doing well is probably an electorate
that is open to suggestion about whom to support. If, as we know to be the case,
many primary and caucus voters are also strong partisans, what they want in a
candidate may be exactly what party insiders want: Someone who can unite the
party and win in November. Supporting the candidate with the most insider
endorsements, who is also likely to be widely viewed as the most viable
candidate, may then be a low-cost and reasonable course of action.
If party voters care so little about presidential nominations that most do not bother to
inform themselves about the field or in many cases even to vote, and especially if, as
Cohen et al. argue, many of those who do vote are willing to take cues from party leaders,
it is hard to see how changes in political communication -- past, present, or future -- will
affect the character of mass involvement in the process.
This is not to say, however, that changes in political communication have failed to
affect presidential nominations. Like the Republican printers of the 1790s, political
activists have been quick to seize on every improvement in communication over the past
two centuries, but they have had two rather distinct purposes in mind. The first has been
to mobilize voter support for their candidates; the second has been to improve
communication among themselves and thereby the quality of political choices they make.
The one purpose to which parties have not sought to put improving communication has
18
Voters must register as a member of the party whose caucus they attend, but registration is permitted at
the caucus. Hence participation is open to independents as well as partisans.
been greater public involvement in internal party affairs.
In most of the rest of this paper, I will discuss how parties have used improved
political communication to improve their own internal decision-making.
COMMUNICATION FOR PARTY BUSINESS
The first nominees of the new Republican party were odd choices for a national
coalition to make: All three of its nominees -- Jefferson, Madison, Monroe -- were
Virginians. One can appreciate that Madison deserved the honor for his role in the
Constitution, but it is hard to see why Monroe was chosen to succeed him. The
congressional caucus did debate the Monroe nomination, but why was Monroe
considered at all? One possibility is that, as the protégé of Jefferson’s Albemarle County
neighbor and protégé, Madison, simply had more relevant experience and support in high
places than anyone else running. For whatever reason, power seemed to be narrowly held
within the party.
When the presidency next came open in 1824, six men entered the fray, four of whom
remained long enough to split the vote and force a bitter decision in the House of
Representatives. One leading politician, Senator Martin Van Buren of New York, tried to
use the congressional caucus to coordinate support behind the candidate of his choice,
William Crawford of Georgia. But the only legislators who attended caucus were from
New York or Georgia. The nominations that mattered in that election were those of
home state legislatures for John Q. Adams, Henry Clary, and John C. Calhoun. The Van
Buren-led caucus was an effort at party coordination, but an unsuccessful one.
Van Buren attempted to use the congressional caucus again in 1828, but this time no
one would attend. Van Buren, however, had a more promising avenue of coordination.
The most successful candidate in the 1824 election was Andrew Jackson, who won 43
percent of the popular vote. Without consulting the Jackson, Van Buren began working
with state-level party activists to create a majority coalition for Jackson in 1828. The
cornerstone of the alliance would be New York, which Van Buren and his lieutenants
controlled. Van Buren traveled to some states and wrote to leaders in others to persuade
them to join with New York in a new national party. His most important move was to
bring Virginia, the largest southern state, into the alliance. The planters who dominated
Virginia politics disliked Jackson, but Van Buren appealed to them with the idea that an
alliance between New York and Virginia would stifle “the clamor against the Southern
Influence and African Slavery.” As the New Yorker explained:
Instead of the question being between a northern and Southern man, it would be
whether or not the ties, which have heretofore bound together a great political
party should be severed. The difference between the two questions would be
found to be immense...
[E]effects would be highly salutary on your section of the union by the revival of
old party distinctions …. If the old ones are suppressed, geographical division
founded on local interests, or what is worse prejudices between free and slave
holding states will inevitably take their place…
Van Buren added that Jackson would make an ideal vehicle for this new party, because
he was not identified with any cause or issue. “Genl. Jackson has been so little in public
life, that it will not be a little difficult to contrast his opinions on great questions with
those of [President] Adams,” wrote Van Buren.
With free sections of the nation growing faster than the slave states, the offer of a
long-term alliance with New York behind a winning candidate was hard to hard to refuse,
and Ritchie did not refuse. The result was the formation of the national Democratic
party, which has survived to this day. As Van Buren foresaw, nomination of an antislavery candidate for president was impossible in this cross-sectional party. And it was
impossible as well in the Whig Party, which formed in opposition to it and also included
free and slave states.
The political communication that gave rise to the new party system was primitive and
centralized -- personal letters and visits of the party organizer, Van Buren. Yet it was
sufficient to the task at hand. Indeed, Van Buren would probably have preferred to
communicate privately, given his manipulative intent. In private he could say exactly
what he meant without worrying what others might think about it.
All this was in marked contrast to the formation of the Jeffersonian Republican party,
which developed on the basis of public communication and nominated a candidate who
was committed to its publicly stated purposes. But critical party business has probably
more often been conducted as Van Buren conducted it than as the Jeffersonians did.
The invention of the national party nominating convention in the 1830s was a huge
advance in private party communication. It brought each party’s leaders from around the
country to a central location where -- despite public roll calls -- key decisions and deals
could be made out of public view whenever it was expedient to do so.
The first uses of the party convention are instructive. The ostensible purpose of the
Democratic convention of 1832 was to re-nominate Jackson. The real purpose, however,
was to remove John C. Calhoun as vice-president and replace him with Van Buren,
whom Jackson wished to designate as his successor. The plan worked as intended in
1832 and again in 1836, when Van Buren was nominated for president and won the
general election as well.
The 1832 and 1836 Democratic conventions may be seen as examples in which party
leaders (Jackson and Van Buren) used a new form of communication (an expanded
system of national roads) to maintain control over party business.
But the control was short-lived. Van Buren, the incumbent president, was renominated by his party, but the opposition Whig Party passed over their its politician,
Henry Clay, in favor of an aging Indian fighter with little public record, William Henry
Harrison. This was another case of a party choosing a politician precisely because he
stood for nothing in particular. But in another sense, it was a major innovation -- the first
time that members of a party actually deliberated and chose their own nominee rather
than deferring to the top leadership. In 1844, when Van Buren again sought the
Democratic nomination, the party that he had created snubbed him and chose instead a
man with no national standing, James K. Polk. The standard view of why Polk was
chosen was that he was more acceptable to the party’s major factions, especially slave
holders, than was Van Buren, who appeared insufficiently enthusiastic for the admission
of new slave states to the Union.
The effect of better internal party communication, then, was a democratization of
decision-making within the party. It is not obvious, however, that democratization within
the party served the larger interest of democracy. It just made it easier for the parties to
coordinate on a candidate acceptable to all of the party’s interests.
The heyday of the national party convention lasted about 90 years. In this time,
conventions might take as many as 10, 20 or even 100 ballots to arrive at a nomination,
with balloting punctuated by adjournments to give the bosses time to for negotiation and
secret deal making. The 1920 Republican nomination is a classic case of the convention
system in full flower. In the months ahead of the convention, three candidates “waged
nationwide campaigns” in which they sought to build delegate support. 19 Among several
lesser candidates was Warren G. Harding, an undistinguished Senator who, as was said at
the time, “looked like a president.” Harding ran a low key campaign whose strategy was
to offend no one and hope for deadlock at the convention. Then, as predicted by his
campaign manager, “about eleven minutes after two, Friday morning of the convention,
when fifteen or twenty weary men are sitting around a table, someone will say: ‘Who will
we nominate?’ At that decisive time, the friends of Harding will suggest him and we can
well afford to abide by the result.”
Events unfolded as the campaign manager predicted: None of the main candidates
could win a majority of delegates, the chair of the convention called for recess, and a
smoke-filled room of party leaders decided early on Friday morning for Harding. After a
several additional ballots worked out as planned, Harding was duly nominated on the
10th ballot.
The classic national party convention died a rather sudden death in the next few years
-- killed, as it appears, by a further development in political communication. The 1924
Democratic convention took 103 ballots and more than two weeks. 20 But in 1928, both
parties had open nominations and reached their decisions on the first ballot. And this was
the way of the future: From 1928 to 1968 most nominations were made on the first ballot
and no nomination took more than a few ballots.
What changed, as Cohen et al. argue in The Party Decides, was the advent of train
19
Our account follows Richard Bain’s account in Convention Decisions and Voting
Records, p. 203.
20
The winning Republican candidate in 1924 was Calvin Coolidge, who became president upon
Harding’s death in 1923, was nominated on the first ballot.
travel made it possible for candidates, their managers, and party leaders to make their
deals ahead of the convention. The Southern Democratic leaders who acquiesced in the
nomination of Al Smith on the first ballot in 1928 had met beforehand in Atlanta and
decided that since resistance to a Catholic nominee was futile. The nomination of
Franklin Roosevelt in 1932 was effectively won by James Farley on his famous “Elk
convention trip” in 1931. And so it went.
The nomination of Richard Nixon in 1960 shows how the new game was played. As
T. H. White has written:
... For seven years, the Vice-President [Nixon] had crisscrossed the country,
delivering himself to regular Party organizations, helping them at their dinners,
their banquets, in their campaigns. He had done their chores and their work for
six years in an administration whose President was -- as they put the phrase
delicately but negatively -- “not politically conditioned.”
.... Thus, in the long civil war between regulars and liberals in the Republican
Party, the regular base was [by 1959] safe for Nixon. (p. 63)
But does this mean that Nixon forced himself on the party? That Nixon, the only
strong candidate in the field, was so strong that the party could not say no?
The answer is clearly no. Nixon had a potentially formidable opponent in the in the
person of Nelson A. Rockefeller, the governor of New York. No sitting vice-president
since Martin Van Buren had been nominated by his party for president, whereas several
New York governors had been chosen, so Nixon did not seem like a sure bet to beat
Rockefeller.
Rockefeller never jumped with both feet into the race, but he showed every intention
of doing so. He built a state-of-the-art campaign headquarters, hired a large staff of
writers, advance men, and publicists, and planned an ambitious schedule of travels to line
up support for his candidacy. But then he dropped out. As one of Rockefeller’s advisors
explained,
The doors were locked, barred, and closed.... here was the club, not only against
Nelson because he was a liberal, but also committed to Nixon. Richard Nixon is a
shrewd man; he spotted where control of the nomination lay seven years before.
When he was traveling, he wasn’t just making friends with State Chairmen and
the regulars; he was dining with the big interests at the same time. ... These people
liked Ike. But they liked Nixon even more. (p. 74)
In consequence of Rockefeller’s decision to stay out of the race, Nixon had no active
opponent 21 and was nominated easily on the first ballot -- another case of a candidate
who campaigned vigorously and obtained the nomination with apparent ease.
Again in 1968, Nixon was nominated on the first ballot, and again his success was
due to his vigorous efforts ahead of the convention. Nixon traveled extensively on behalf
of Republican candidates in the 1966 Congressional elections. In all, he traveled 30,000
miles and visited 82 (!) congressional districts.(White, 1969, p. 58) The credit thus
earned made him viable for the 1968 presidential nomination, and when the liberal
Republican candidate of that year (Governor George Romney of Michigan) folded, Nixon
became the front-runner.
The 1968 contest was actually much closer than Nixon’s first ballot win suggested.
21
A small number of conservative delegates favored Goldwater, but the Arizona Senator had taken himself
out of the running before the balloting began.
The backbone of his support was from southern delegations and their favorite was Ronald
Reagan, who had been elected governor of California in 1966 and who, equally
importantly, had just spent more than a decade traveling the country speaking on political
themes. Many of his engagements were as a motivational speaker for the General
Electric Corporation, but increasingly he spoke at Republican events. He had
campaigned for Goldwater during the 1964 California Primary and gave a well received
nationally televised speech for the Arizona Senator in the fall. Thus, Reagan was not
only known to large number of Republican delegates, but liked and admired by
conservatives. “I love that man,” said Senator Strom Thurmond, the most respected
leader of Southern delegates. “He’s the best hope we’ve got.” (Chester, 434)
Yet Thurmond was for Nixon. With other southern admirers of Reagan, he feared that
if Reagan broke up the Nixon coalition, Rockefeller, who had more first ballot pledges
than Reagan, might pick up the pieces. Or Reagan might carry too much baggage from
his close association with Goldwater to be viable in the general election. Meanwhile,
Nixon was a candidate who was both acceptable to all factions of the party and probably
able to beat the Democrats in November.
But if Thurmond and other conservative leaders saw Nixon as the best bet in 1968,
ordinary delegates were another matter. A notable feature of this convention is that many
fervent ideologues were free to make up their own minds and favored a staunch
conservative as their first choice. Getting sufficient numbers of them to stick with Nixon
was the biggest story of the convention, and it was mainly a story intense internal party
discussion. This was how Thurmond put the matter to the South Carolina delegation:
A vote for Reagan is a vote for Rockefeller..... We have no choice, if we want to
win, except to vote for Nixon [for nomination]... We must quit using our hearts
and start using our heads... I have been down this road, so I know. I am laying
my prestige, my record of forty years in public life, I am laying it all on the line
this time. ... Believe me, I love Reagan, but Nixon’s the one. (Chester 447-48)
After hearing this speech, the South Carolina delegation switched from 22-0 for Reagan
to 22-0 for Nixon.
Meanwhile, Reagan was also making the rounds of the state delegations and, after
years of practice, he knew how to move an audience. “There is nothing more impressive
than Ronnie Reagan behind closed doors,” said one of Reagan’s admirers who was
nonetheless a Nixon backer (Chester 454). But coming right behind Reagan as chief
fireman for the Nixon camp was Thurmond. By the accounts of White and Chester et
al., his exertions were crucial.
The following passage gives a flavor of the forces at work in this convention:
At noon, [Reagan] entertained sixteen of the Florida people in his suit at the
Deauville. The flames started to leap again. When the Florida delegates
assembled for their final private caucus at two o’clock in their club, they were in a
highly emotional state. The room was not so much smoke-filled as tearstained....
[State chair Bill] Murfin threatened to resign if they did not come into line [for
Nixon]. Several of the women were weeping openly.
The Florida delegation later voted 32 for Nixon and one for Reagan
As the roll call of the states began on the convention floor, Thurmond told a reporter,
“The South loves Reagan, but it won’t break” (p. 474). He was right. Nixon got 300 of
the South’s 348 votes, by far his largest block of regional support. Without that block -without, in other words, the ability of Thurmond and other leaders to get a large group of
delegates to vote for their second choice -- Nixon would probably not have been
nominated on the first ballot and perhaps not at all. This was a block that Nixon won
ahead of the convention on the basis of private negotiation with southern leaders and held
onto at the convention with the help of those same leaders. Commenting during the 1968
campaign on the decline of multi-ballot conventions, Richard Nixon said the reason was
that “people know the game too well” (Chester and others, 434)
The McGovern-Fraser reforms deprived parties of the kind of focused internal
communication that kept the 1968 nomination for Nixon, but they didn’t really need it.
Parties had already developed the capacity to form a consensus ahead of their national
party conventions and it was no great leap, from a communication point of view, for them
to continue making their choice in an “Invisible Primary” ahead of the state primaries and
caucuses. After a period of strategic uncertainty in the 1970s, the reformed party system
settled down to one in which party leaders have been able to get the outcome they want in
all cases in which they can agree on what they want.
If there has been a trend in presidential nominations since 1980, it has been frontloading -- not only of the regular voter primaries, but of the Invisible Primary. All the
players understand the game extremely well and jump in as soon as they can find the
means to do so. The media, too, have tuned in and now provide excellent accounts.
Their communication, I emphasize, does not appear to drive the process, but it does
afford a glimpse of how the partisan Invisible Primary works. The following is an
excerpt from The Party Decides on the nomination of George W. Bush in 2000
***************
For the first time in 50 years in the Republican party, wrote Gloria Bolger in U.S.
News and World Report in 1997, “It’s nobody's turn to be president."(1997, p. 34)
Nonetheless, George W. Bush won the Invisible Primary in a walk. This is how it
happened.
The walk began shortly after Bush’s election as governor of Texas in 1994. Although
he had never held public office, his win set tongues to wagging. Wrote the Washington
Post:
The big news in Texas was the bruising victory of George W. Bush (R) over
popular incumbent Gov. Ann Richards (D). The success of the former
president's son in exploiting the continuing shift toward conservatism of such
a large and important state immediately marked him as a potentially
influential player on the national political scene.(Goshko and Phillips, 1994,
p. A42)
This was just media speculation, but Republican insiders were impressed too. At the
1996 Republican convention, Bush was one of a half-dozen candidates who attracted
attention as potential nominees in the next contest. And within this select group, wrote
David Broder, “None, perhaps, has been the focus of more attention than Bush” “He
pushed all the right buttons,” said one of Broder’s sources.”(1996, p. A22)
This was more than journalistic speculation, and it continued. Two weeks after the
inauguration of Bill Clinton in early 1997, Ronald Brownstein wrote that ”The great
mentioners scoping out potential GOP candidates for the year 2000 already have their
eyes on at least half a dozen governors. Everyone's list starts with Bush..."(1997b, p. A5)
Bush's strengths, the article notes, are his popularity in Texas, his success in cutting
taxes, and his emphasis on a popular issue, education.
Polls at this point did not favor Bush. In a survey of Republicans in late 1996, 37
percent favored Colin Powell for the 2000 nomination, with Jack Kemp at 20 percent and
Bush at 19. A poll early in early 1997 found that Bush had slipped into fourth place,
behind Dan Quayle, with only 7 percent of Republicans favoring him. 22
But insider interest in Bush continued to grow. In February, 1997 Brownstein
reported that "the pre-presidential maneuvering in GOP circles has begun unusually
early this time. Almost every day, some prominent Republican calls Karl Rove, Bush's
chief political strategist, offering to enlist for 2000 as soon as the governor gives the
word."(1997a, p. A5)
Such proffers of support were not premature. Trolling had already begun for one of
the bigger fish in the Republican pond, Ralph Reed, then-executive director of the
Christian Coalition. This particular fish, as Richard Berke reported in the New York
Times in May, 1997:
… has been besieged by prospective contenders since he announced last month
that he plans to resign and become a political consultant. "There is already a
remarkable level of jockeying," Mr. Reed said. "I've had conversations with a
number of the prospective candidates who have expressed interest in my
involvement. Some have asked how soon I could start. But I think it's premature
right now."
Even as they feel out possible advisers in private, many candidates are
publicly lying low. Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, for one, has not set foot in
New Hampshire this year, and he insists that his focus is on winning re-election
next year. That has not stopped him from holding private meetings with Mr.
Reed and others to discuss 2000.(1997, p. A19)
22
Mayer, 2004, p. 95.
Then came setback. At the end of the summer -- still just seven months into Bill
Clinton's term and 30 months before the Iowa caucuses -- Bush spoke to a large party
gathering in Indianapolis amid high expectations.
The top billing, and the coveted Saturday night speaking slot … went to George
W. Bush, the Governor from Texas who in his first term has rapidly burst into
the political stratosphere as the hottest figure among major players in
Republican circles. Despite the most open field in years, many political
professionals are declaring, embarrassingly early, that Mr. Bush is the
Republican to beat for the Presidential nomination in 2000. The buzz only
intensified on Saturday when Mr. Bush, despite his protestations that his only
concern is his re-election next year, made a rare foray into national politics,
coming to this meeting, which showcased Presidential hopefuls.
But Bush talked about arcane details of Texas politics and refused to take a stand on
a controversial recent deal between Clinton and the Republican Congress. Richard Berke
of the New York Times said that the speech was stiffly delivered and that several potential
rivals -- millionaire Malcolm "Steve" Forbes, Dan Quayle, and Senator Fred Thompson - performed better. Conservative columnist Robert Novak went further. “[Bush]
generated less fervor than any presidential possibility who spoke earlier in the
conference,” wrote Novak., “I’d say George was the dullest knife in the pantry,” said one
of Novak’s sources. "Still,” added Berke, “many in the audience said that one off night
for Mr. Bush did not detract from his overall appeal." Bush was not the Republican
front-runner, asserted Novak, but was still a contender.
After this brief foray into presidential politics, Bush returned to Texas and
concentrated on succeeding as governor. But he continued to be an object of interest.
“Fund-raisers, strategists, party insiders -- all the Republicans who stand to gain either
power or employment from a presidential run -- have been watching him since the
moment he took the oath of office in Austin in January 1995,” wrote Julia Reed in Weekly
Standard (1997, p. 10). Her own review was quite positive. Despite his wayward youth,
she described him as an authentic conservative with popular appeal. “There is
something admirable when someone like George W. Bush actually grows up, if only
because so many men like him never really do.” More substantively, Fred Barnes, the
executive editor of the The Weekly Standard, wrote in late 1998 that
He's conservative by instinct. On taxes and limiting government, he sounds
semi-Reaganesque. The Cato Institute, in its rating of governors, called him
"admirably tightfisted" … 23
The provocative part of Bush's spiel is his cultural conservatism. He's not a
conventional social conservative. He doesn't mention abortion, homosexuality,
or school prayer. But all of his speeches feature a conservative rap on the
culture.(1998, p. 19)
A minor incident in 1998 showed up the delicacy of Bush’s efforts to unite the party
behind his candidacy. His father had never been a favorite of conservatives and had in
fact greatly angered them by breaking his pledge against raising taxes. Wanting
conservative support, the younger Bush therefore faced a need to distinguish himself
from his father. In his interview with the Weekly Standard, he handled this problem by
noting this father “was educated at Greenwich Country Day” but that “I was educated at
San Jacinto Junior High in Midland, Texas. I am a Texan and a westerner and a
southerner.”(Reed, 1997, p. 10) But in June, one of the elder Bush’s supporters
circulated a letter suggesting that the son would be relying on the same circle of advisors
as the father. Robert Novak described the fallout as follows:
23
However, the Cato Institute gave Bush a grade of only B.
Alarm bells went off nationwide. Despite talk of 2000 promising the most
open race for the GOP presidential nomination since 1940, the party
establishment made its choice months ago: George W. Bush. But the question
is: Does the bright, likable and conservative younger Bush carry the unwanted
baggage of politicians and advisers associated with his father's dreadful
campaign of 1992?(1998, p. 39)
Novak reports that the letter writer was “scolded by someone close to the governor”
and forced to apologize. Novak further noted that the “son's supporters around the
country don't welcome his father's retainers” and listed several that were suspect,
including the senior Bush’s national security advisor, Bret Scowcroft. Novak further
reported that when David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union wrote
that the younger Bush should avoid “the old Bush organization,” Keene was “was
quickly called by a Bush associate in Austin urging him to keep it up.”
At this point in 1998, Bush still had no official endorsements because he was still not
officially a candidate. As well, media coverage of his campaign was minimal, in part
because the campaign wanted it that way: When the governor came to Washington to
meet with party leaders in 1998, his campaign refused to release a schedule of his
meetings and, as is common in both parties, barred reporters from what events they
might discover.
But elements of signaling and counter-signaling were clearly visible in the media,
along with indications of much more extensive discussion beyond the purview of the
media. Some of this discussion involved other candidates, with much less reported about
the many unsuccessful campaigns than about Bush’s successful one. This, too, was a
signal. Thus, by the time the Invisible Primary became more publicly visible, no one
plugged into national politics would be surprised by the National Review’s
characterization of the race: “[Bush] has the name and will have the money; the race is
his to lose.”(Miller and Ponnuru, 1998). In fact, even the public had gotten the message.
Bush began moving up in the polls in spring 1997 and was the clear poll front runner
from 1998 on. 24
Notwithstanding his essentially private trip to Washington, Bush did relatively little
travel in the Invisible Primary . He did most of his campaigning from the Governor’s
mansion in Austin, to which party leaders and well-heeled donors traveled to listen to
him speak, exchange a few words, and offer support. As reporter Dan Balz wrote,
Politicians from Iowa, whose precinct caucuses kick off the presidential
nominating process, normally wait for candidates to come to them. But [Iowa
State Representative Chuck Larson] was one of a dozen Iowa legislators who
chartered two planes that day to fly to Austin, and he didn't leave disappointed.
''We have had an opportunity to meet (candidates) Steve Forbes and Dan
Quayle and the others, and they're all very sharp and competent and capable,''
Mr. Larson said. ''But after meeting George Bush, you know that if he runs, he
will be the next president of the United States.''
The Texas capital is in the grip of a phenomenon that may be unique in the
annals of presidential campaign startups. As a slew of other Republican
candidates make pilgrimages to Iowa and New Hampshire and struggle for
money, media attention and political support, the world is rushing to Mr. Bush's
door in what has become the information age equivalent of William McKinley's
front-porch campaign of 1896.(Balz, 1999a, p. A1)
Wealthy donors were prominent among those making the pilgrimage to Austin. Bush
was so popular them that, well into the Invisible Primary, he had not “had to spend one
minute on the telephone pleading for donations -- a luxury not enjoyed by most other
candidates. ‘Pick up the phone and dial for contributions?" Mr. Bush asked in an
24
Mayer, 2004, pp. 95-96.
interview on Friday. ‘Not at all.’ Mr. Bush simply shows up at fund-raising
events.”(Berke, 1998, p. A9)
Bush also had trouble with social conservatives within the party who felt that the
senior Bush had betrayed them. At a 1998 meeting of 15 conservative leaders, some
favored a Third Party candidate in 2000 if the Republican party failed to satisfy them.
According to a newspaper report,
California Gov. Pete Wilson was generally viewed as unacceptable by this group,
and there were some present who described Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the
same category as Wilson, according to sources who attended. Andrea Sheldon,
executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said the danger of a
George W. Bush presidency is that "like father like son." President Bush "gave us
[Supreme Court] Justice [David] Souter. Souter turned out to be a real disaster,"
she said.
By the following spring, however, many religious conservative leaders were rallying to
Bush. Under the headline “Conservatives Shield Bush’s Abortion Stand from Right
Wing,” Washington Post reporter Thomas Edsall wrote that
Key leaders of the conservative establishment have begun an aggressive
defense of George W. Bush's abortion stand in an effort to blunt attacks on the
Texas governor's presidential campaign from the Republican Party's right wing.
Just as such candidates as conservative activist Gary Bauer, publishing heir
Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes and television commentator Patrick J. Buchanan are
beginning to gear up to use abortion to slow the momentum behind Bush, such
antiabortion luminaries as Christian Coalition chairman Pat Robertson and
David N. O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee,
have stepped in to defend Bush's abortion position.
"Governor Bush has a pro-life record and has taken a pro-life position,"
O'Steen said in a statement…(Edsall, 1999, p. A4)
But some social conservatives accepted Bush without embracing him. The problem
they faced was a standard one in party politics. Two candidates in the race, Pat
Buchanan and Gary Bauer, fully and enthusiastically embraced their agenda. At the
same time, Bush refused to promise an anti-abortion litmus test in judicial appointments.
In order to remain attractive to centrist voters, Bush would promise only to appoint
judges who would follow the Constitution. The implication was that the nominees would
be solidly pro-Life, but Bush would not say so.
Eventually, conservative leaders decided to take Bush at his implied word and to rally
their supporters. According to Richard Berke of the New York Times,
In appeals to the politically active members of their groups… the
conservative leaders make clear that they believe Mr. Bush can win the
election if he is left politically unfettered on the issues -- and that he will
support their causes once in office.
David N. O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life
Committee, said Mr. Bush "would be as effective a pro-life president as
anyone seeking the office." He said his group was contacting members in its
3,000 chapters to counter "other Republican candidates who will go after the
front-runner -- that's not helpful to the pro-life movement…"
One of the most influential conservative voices, James C. Dobson, leader
of Focus on the Family, whose daily radio show draws five million listeners,
has stayed silent for months... Dr. Dobson has for years been particularly
close to Mr. Bauer but has not endorsed him despite pleas from the Bauer
campaign. (Berke, 1999b, p. A1)
The implied deal between Bush and the religious right was not brokered in a smokefilled room, but it was much like an old fashioned backroom deal. And Bush appeared to
keep his side of it. When, several years later, two openings came up on the Supreme
Court, President Bush came through with nominations that, by initial indications, were
as good as the religious right could have hoped for. 25
***************
What we see in this account is a political party that can communicate effectively with
itself without benefit of the mainstream media. Some significant communication was
carried in the public media -- Novak’s column stands out in this respect -- but mostly
mainstream reporters seem to be reporting on a process that needs the help of reporters
about as much as smoke-filled room that nominated Harding or the tear-stained
conference rooms that held fast for Nixon. If there is a difference, it is that ordinary
voters can, by following elite mainstream and opinion journals, get a very good idea what
is going on. But few care to.
If this account has correctly captured the dynamics of presidential nominations, it
seems unlikely that the expansion of communication on cable and on the Internet is likely
to have much importance for the presidential nominations. Presidential nominations are
and are likely to remain dominated by political insiders. The ease of entry into the game
-- regular citizens can donate money and even give speeches with a few key strokes on
their computer -- will mean the entry of more players, but the players will need to assume
roles in partisan world that is already crowded. Here is another except from The Party
Decides.
***************
During the 2006 election, liberal bloggers of the so-called “netroots” were a major
force in several elections, pushing Democratic candidates to the left on major issues,
25
It strengthens our story that one of Bush’s initial nominations was unacceptable to the
religious right but withdrew once this became clear.
especially the war in Iraq. In one notable case, bloggers helped deprive the party’s
2000 Vice-Presidential nominee, Senator Joe Lieberman, of the Democratic nomination
in Connecticut. The netroots bloggers entered the 2008 presidential nominations with a
determination to be similarly effective. Their most preferred candidate was John
Edwards, the furthest left and most anti-war of the major Democratic contenders. And
their favorite foil was Hillary Clinton, who, like John Kerry in 2004, had voted for the
Iraq War Resolution in 2002 and still refused to call for an immediate pullout of U.S.
troops. A question much on the mind of Democrats was whether the netroots would play
the disruptive role in 2008 they had played in 2004 and 2006.
The answer from Hillary Clinton’s recent visit to the Yearly Kos convention appears
to be no. Clinton stood her ground, telling the bloggers that “We can’t just wake up and
say we will move 160,000 troops. That is dangerous.” The bloggers let that statement
go, but booed when the New York Senator said she would continue to take campaign
donations from registered lobbyists. Clinton responded nimbly. “I have been waiting
[for that],” she said with a smile. “It gives me a real sense of reality in being here. I have
a good idea about bringing about change. I wish it were as simple as doing this or that. I
will take money from lobbyists, because some represent real Americans like nurses and
social workers, and they represent businesses that employ a lot of people. And I ask you
to look at my record. I do want to be the president for everybody.”
For that set of follow-up comments, which conceded nothing, Clinton got some
applause. Afterward, Markos Moulitsas, the group’s founder, told a reporter, “[Clinton]
did a good job in reducing hostility. Half the battle is getting the proper respect, and she
got that. She doesn’t have to get total agreement.” Moulitsas certainly wasn’t endorsing
Clinton as his first choice, but he was saying, in terms of our argument, that she was
acceptable.
Reflecting on this episode, some commentators praised Clinton’s skill in taming the
netroots. This would be a candidate-centered interpretation. An alternative view is that,
having lost two straight presidential elections, the bloggers realized that, whatever her
shortcomings, Clinton might be the best bet to unite the Democratic Party and win in
November. On this view, the bloggers had come to realize that the country has only two
major parties and that, to be effective, they must behave as regular members of one of
them.
***************
I will have some specific remarks at the conference about how the Internet has
affected the campaigns of 2004 and 2008, but this is all I have time to write out.
Figure 1
Pressler
Ford
Brown
Crane
0%
Reagan
0%
Kennedy
20%
Dole
40%
20%
Carter
27.8% of
governors
endorsing
Anderson
40%
60%
Baker
68.6% of
governors
endorsing
Connally
60%
1980 REPUBLICANS
80%
Bush
1980 DEMOCRATS
80%
1984 DEMOCRATS
80%
60%
47.1% of
governors
endorsing
40%
20%
Armstrong
Baker
Haig
Schroeder
Babbitt
Biden
Hart
Simon
Jackson
0%
Gore
0%
Gephardt
20%
DuPont
40%
20%
Dukakis
58.3% of
governors
endorsing
Robertson
40%
60%
Laxalt
19.2% of
governors
endorsing
Kemp
60%
1988 REPUBLICANS
80%
Dole
1988 DEMOCRATS
80%
Distribution of politically weighted
endorsements before the Iowa caucus for
presidential nominations, 1980 to 2004.
Eventually nominee in black.
Bush
Bumpers
McGovern
Hollings
Askew
Hart
Jackson
Cranston
Glenn
Mondale
0%
Figure 1 continued
60%
2000 DEMOCRATS
80%
60%
64.7% of
governors
endorsing
40%
Forbes
Wilson
Dole
Brown
Cuomo
Wilder
Tsongas
McCurdy
0%
Kerrey
0%
Harkin
20%
Clinton
20%
Buchanan
40%
Alexander
40%
90.0% of
governors
endorsing
Lugar
44.8% of
governors
endorsing
60%
1996 REPUBLICANS
Gingrich
80%
Specter
1992 DEMOCRATS
Gramm
80%
2000 REPUBLICANS
80%
60%
87.5% of
governors
endorsing
40%
20%
20%
4.8% of
governors
endorsing
60%
40%
20%
Sharpton
Graham
Kucinich
Lieberman
Edwards
Clark
Kerry
Gephardt
Dean
0%
Hatch
Kasich
Bauer
Alexander
Quayle
Dole
Forbes
Bush
Bradley
Gore
2004 DEMOCRATS
80%
McCain
0%
0%