Toward Reform of the Reforms

Road to nomination is too complex, too costly, too long

Who could have predicted the outcome of the 1980 race for the G.O.P. nomination ? On the eve of the Oregon primary, George Bush stopped in the middle of his 2,735th campaign speech and, with a faraway look in his eyes, wandered outside. He said he wanted to enjoy the scenery. Earlier, Howard Baker returned to the Senate, claiming he would rather push a dozen energy bills through Congress than endure another primary. Ronald Reagan went back to making movies because there were fewer changes of scene; John Connolly found it more restful to teach Middle East relations at New York City College. At the convention, party leaders were panicked: there were no candidates. Then they hit on an astounding idea. Why not meet in a smoke-filled back room and, pooling their experience and influence, pick the best candidate? This they did, producing a man who was acceptable to all elements of the party, a man who was fresh from having avoided the primaries, a man who... The rest is history.

That much maligned figure, the party boss, is looking better and better these days. A growing number of politicians and political scientists would like to bring him back, smoke-filled room and all, to restore some order and rationality to the now chaotic presidential nominating process.

The McGovern-Fraser reforms of 1972, initiated by the Democrats and copied by the Republicans, were intended to open the process to a greater number of people, especially women, minorities and the young. But the new rules have made the selection by caucus so complicated that more and more states have substituted primaries. This year 37 are holding primaries, an expensive and enervating ordeal for candidates that is almost as burdensome as the presidency itself.

The process that has been evolving over the past ten years is just as wearisome for a jaded public. Thanks to increasing television exposure, the candidates become as familiar and predictable, if not as entertaining, as Mork and Archie. And how many canned speeches, straws in the wind, shifts in the polls, who's-up-who's-down, can an audience take before it tunes out? Many people are getting too bored to bother to vote at all. The primary turnout dropped from 39% of those of voting age in 1968 to 28% eight years later, and there is no reason to think it will not continue to decline.

If the outcome of this ever lengthening process were highly satisfactory, then it might be worth the effort. But there is growing unease over the kind of candidate who ultimately emerges. That he has been rigorously tested in some respects can hardly be denied. "The energy of the long distance runner is essential to the conduct of the presidency," says Leonard Garment, a New York attorney who used to be an aide to President Nixon. "It's a job that calls for that kind of stamina." Yet other qualities may be slighted by the primary process: experience, acumen, political leadership, an ability to organize coalitions and to work out compromises. Says Mike Thompson, a Republican state committeeman in Florida: "Franklin Roosevelt couldn't be nominated today. A Bruce Jenner could beat him."

The system favors the unencumbered outsider with lots of time and money. Naturally, those who benefit most want to change it least. Bill Roberts, John Connally's western campaign manager, needs all the time he can get to expose his candidate. "Over a 16-to 18-month period, the truth will out," he says. But the candidate who is holding down a full-time job is at a serious disadvantage. That has been the problem for Howard Baker, who was late in starting his campaign because of his duties as Senate minority leader. Significantly, all his chief rivals are currently unemployed. "We've really turned the world upside down," says Barney Frank, a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts. "It used to be that you needed a position to run from. Now you need not to have one. The out-of-office guy is the one who's way ahead. That's a little wacky."

All the additional campaigning does not necessarily clarify the complex issues or reveal the candidate. Says Senator George McGovern, one of the chief authors of the nominating reforms: "The candidate isn't under the close personal scrutiny that a handful of bosses used to give him. I have to admit that the more primaries there are, the more difficult is the process." The winner of the 1976 marathon, Jimmy Carter, was not really much better known at the end of the campaign than he was at the beginning, and his stands on the issues remained murky--calculatedly so.

Theoretically, a candidate acquires an understanding of local issues and regional viewpoints as he zigzags around the country, but this may be exaggerated. Typically, he darts from one town to the next, checking in at interchangeable motels, giving much the same speech in front of audiences that are to a considerable extent made up of the traveling press corps, which anticipates his every word. The candidate does not learn from the people he addresses nor they from him. Increasingly, his private pollsters tell him what is supposed to be on peoples' minds; then he tells the people what he thinks they want to hear. A new idea is rare indeed.

As they trudge through the primaries, the candidates aim for the votes of a rather narrow slice of the electorate. Because a greater degree of understanding of candidates and issues is needed to cast a primary ballot, those who vote tend to be articulate, highly motivated, upper middle income citizens, who are usually more ideologically committed, whether to the right or to the left. Writes Chicago Lawyer Newton Minow, former chairman of the FCC: "The current version of primaries turns the decision over to what, in a sense, is a new kind of political boss. A small handful of party activists dominate the primaries. The result is a process that tends to fragment rather than unify and to confuse rather than enlighten."

As the primaries have proliferated, the role of the parties has diminished. The candidate builds his personal campaign structure. This tightly knit, often amateur group, its fortunes wedded to one man, is inevitably antagonistic to the party, a situation that carries over to the White House when the winner arrives there. Alan Baron, who was a chief instigator of party reforms and now publishes a newsletter, the Baron Report, in Washington, feels that Carter won "on the basis of being able to appeal successfully to individual voters, not on the basis of building coalitions and forging ties among various groups that are necessary for governing the country. We have divided the presidential election process from the governing process." Adds Chris Arterton, professor of political science at Yale and author of a forthcoming book on the nominating process: "It is somewhat troublesome to find a President coming to office who needs three or four years to figure out what his coalition is. Carter said he was the least encumbered President in American history. He's right, and we've paid for it."

Yet the growing number of observers who are unhappy with the current system take a pragmatic view of changing it. They do not want to repeat the mistake of the reformers who drastically curtailed the power of party leaders and Government officials without adequately considering the consequences. There are distinct advantages to a more open system, however few people take advantage of it. Says Jonathan Moore, director of the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics at Harvard: "We have a very flexible, very pluralistic system with a lot of freedom of choice and diversity within it."

Still, there is room for improvement without junking the present setup. For one thing, the process is too long. Great Britain's national election is disposed of in a mere three weeks. In the U.S., caucuses and primaries now stretch from January to June of election year and could be compressed. Democratic Congressman Morris Udall, who ran unsuccessfully in 1976, suggests limiting the contests to four dates: the first Tuesday of each month from March to June. "This would provide a smorgasbord of elections around the country instead of these overblown single primaries," he explains.

Another alternative, not necessarily an improvement, is to consolidate the primaries on a regional basis, though that might give an unfair advantage to one candidate over another. In 1976, for example, Carter would probably have lost the nomination if the first regional primary had been held in the West, where he did poorly. An even more extreme solution would be a national primary, which would reduce the whole election process to two nationwide votes. Such a plan would eliminate local issues, however, and would put more emphasis than ever on the oversimplified approaches that work best on television. Political Consultant David Garth believes that a national primary would lead to what "Nelson Rockefeller used to call BOMFOG--the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God --and never get into issues."

Without abolishing the primaries, as Barry Goldwater has proposed, the role of party leaders and officeholders can be increased. Minneapolis Attorney David Lebedoff, a longtime activist in Minnesota's Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, asks: "If we have representative government, why can't we have representative politics? No one says that there should be a town meeting of 100 million people through two-way TV for a vote on the SALT treaty." Everett C. Ladd of the Social Science Data Center at the University of Connecticut argues that the alleged glories "of participatory democracy have neutralized representative democracy."

To give seasoned political leaders more say in the nomination, a number of delegate seats could be automatically allotted to them. Tim Hagan, Democratic Party chairman of Ohio's Cuyahoga County, recommends letting state parties add at least 25 delegates from their own ranks who would be uncommitted to any particular candidate. That would leave them free to bargain with other delegations at the convention. Says Hagan: "I see nothing wrong with 100 county chairmen from across the country having some say about what direction they want to go in. At least they would be a check on the possibility that someone runs through these primaries without great scrutiny."

Minow proposes a more elaborate scheme to give political leaders additional influence. No delegate would be bound to any candidate if the primary vote is less than two-thirds of the party's registered voters. In practice, that would mean that almost all delegates would go to the convention uncommitted. Furthermore, independents would not be allowed to cast their ballots in the party primaries. Instead, they would have a vote of their own. The independent vote would have no official standing, but it would be taken into consideration by the party delegates when they attend the convention. They would have a good indication of which candidates have the broadest appeal, but they would still be free to exercise their independent judgment.

A larger role for regulars would reinforce the weakened two-party system. The influence of television advisers and single issue zealots would be reduced. The parties could be strengthened if federal funds were given to them instead of to the candidates. The current law, requiring a candidate to qualify for matching funds by raising in 20 states at least $5,000 in individual contributions of no more than $250, encourages separatism. The parties could also be given free time on television to develop issues and present their candidates. However imperfectly, the parties have traditionally mediated among the contending groups of the electorate, producing a candidate who is at least acceptable to all factions, and at best highly qualified. After all, the point of the nominating process is to find someone who can run the country.

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