Volume 5, Issue 4 - Politics of Presidential Selection

What Do We (Think We) Know about the Politics of Presidential Selection? For this special issue, the Editors asked an array of political scientists, not so much to predict the outcome of the 2008 nominating contests - though we did invite everyone to take a flyer on that one - but to set out what we think we now know about the politics of presidential selection, that is, the fundamentals of this politics that are now more or less invariant. In pursuit of this topic, Peverill Squire returns to the full chronicle of the Iowa caucuses, in what is part defense, part eulogy. William Mayer applies two bedrock indicators, the absolutely most regular behavioral patterns of the last thirty years, to the contest of 2008. Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller argue that there is a different fundamental regularity, one reliably overlooked by both scholars and analysts, in the way that the political parties have resumed control over the selection of their nominees. Alan Abramowitz turns to the place of a growing ideological polarization within the electorate for presidential primaries - and castigates scholars for blaming it on candidates or activists rather than the general public. Costas Panagopoulus asks whether the national party conventions still contribute anything to all of this. Joel Rivlin finds a powerful underlying rhythm to the political advertising associated with all the major campaigns, one that should only grow in 2008. And Bruce Altschuler argues that the end result is a process so flawed that it needs to be swept away and replaced with a national primary. Irving Louis Horowitz then addresses the role of American politics in European integration - or as much, the risks in having no role - most especially at the point when all the major players must grapple with the place of Turkey in this evolution. And in the book review section, Kenneth Baer and Elaine Kamarck tackle Bruce Miroff‘s reflections on the ‚McGovern moment‘ and fall into a spirited debate with the author about how it should be understood. We encourage you to share this issue with your colleagues, especially those who cover elections in the media and blogosphere. They, like you, will be able to access articles at no charge.

The Iowa Caucuses have been at the front of the nomination process since 1972. There are strong indications that their first in the nation status may not last past this campaign season. I offer an assessment of the caucuses by examining six myths that have developed about them.

Based in part on a forecasting model, this article reviews the current state of the 2008 presidential nomination races and offers some predictions about who will win the Democratic and Republican nominations.

Though lightly regarded by many observers, political parties have been able to steer presidential nominations to insider favorites in all nine of the contested cases from 1980 to 2000. Democrats had more trouble in 2004, but still managed to avoid insurgent Howard Dean. This paper explains how today's presidential parties -- understood as coalitions of elected officials, interest and advocacy groups, and ideological activists -- have learned to work together in the so-called Invisible Primary to affect the outcome of the state-by-state primaries and caucuses. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of parties in the pre-Iowa phase of the 2008 nominations.

In recent years, a number of media commentators and scholars have blamed primary voters for the rise of polarization in American politics. According to this argument, primary electorates are dominated by strong partisans whose views are more extreme than those of rank-and-file party supporters. This article uses data from recent exit polls of primary and general election voters as well as the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to test the primary election polarization theory. The evidence does not support the theory. In fact there appears to be very little difference between the ideologies of each party's primary voters and the ideologies of its general election voters. These findings suggest that the polarized state of American politics today reflects the polarized state of the overall American electorate rather than any peculiar characteristics of primary voters. The findings also suggest that even after they secure their party's nomination, it may be risky for candidates to adopt more moderate policy positions in order to appeal to swing voters, because any such move toward the center would risk alienating a large proportion of their party's electoral base.

Despite many years of polls indicating overwhelming support for a national primary, it has never advanced far either in Congress or the parties. Opponents have claimed that it would eliminate the possibility of dark horse candidates building on early successes in small states, would dramatically increase the influence of money and mass media, weaken political parties and increase the possibility that a fringe candidate would win the nomination. This article finds that all these arguments apply at least as well to the current system. By simplifying the system, increasing voter turnout, making all votes equally meaningful and leading to a more representative electorate, a national primary would eliminate many of the serious flaws of the current system and therefore should be more seriously considered than it has been.

Few aspects of the presidential selection process have changed as dramatically as nominating conventions have over the past half century or so. Once the epicenters of the proverbial smoke-filled rooms that all but decided presidential nominations, some argue that conventions are now mainly superficial, perfunctory and even superfluous affairs. These developments, influenced in large part by the ways in which political parties have adapted to institutional changes and growth in mass media, have essentially transformed the nature and role of conventions in modern campaigns. But conventions remain key political events that motivate and inform voters and that have the capacity to influence the dynamics of presidential campaigns. Conventions still matter and persist as useful political institutions.

This paper provides a descriptive framework for analyzing television advertising in the 2008 Presidential general election. Using insights gleaned from data on the advertising contest in the 2004 elections from the Wisconsin Advertising Project, this paper shows how important it is for observers of elections to focus on the various sponsors of advertising, the different motives and aims of advertisers, and the variation in tactics used by campaigners. Television advertising remains the dominant means by which campaigns directly communicate with voters, and understanding the technological, regulatory and strategic context in which these ads are aired will allow for a better understanding of their effects.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: First, to note an unspoken, but obvious fact. The European Union is a living organism that functions with relative success at several levels: legal, economic and monetary in particular. Second, the threat to the EU is from its very success, a desire to overreach natural and functional boundaries by including nation-states with profoundly different structures ands goals. Third, this paper seeks to awaken the policy making bodies in North America to the emergence of regional force in most of Europe that is by varying degrees complementary to US interests and at the same time competitive to the present notion of hegemony. The EU along with the US illustrates the power of bipolarity in the West. The issue of Turkish entrance indicates the limitations of such a condition.

Bruce Miroff's The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party takes a fresh look at the failed 1972 presidential campaign of George McGovern. Unfortunately, Miroff spins the story of the 1972 campaign to make a political point for today. Focusing on what he calls the "politics of insurgency," Miroff fails to adequately capture the larger, fascinating institutional story of how a candidate and his supporters transformed a party and presidential politics. In addition, he makes an ideological argument about the nature of liberalism then and now that in its elitism represents everything that was wrong with the McGovern candidacy and McGovernism.

Kamarck reviews Miroff's new book on the McGovern Campaign and concludes that McGovernism is alive and well in the Republican Party.

A response to reviews of my book, The Liberals' Moment: The McGovern Insurgency and the Identity Crisis of the Democratic Party, written by Kenneth Baer and Elaine Kamarck.

The following is a reply to Bruce Miroff's response to my review of his book, The Liberals' Moment.