Presidential primaries -- better with a final national super Tuesday?

Selecting presidential candidates for the quadrennial November election by popular vote is a relatively recent innovation.  State primaries and caucuses in which candidates vied for citizen votes became an electoral force only in the mid-twentieth century.  Up until then, political party operatives held meetings and conducted conventions to choose each party's candidate for the upcoming presidential election.  The common practice of cigar smoking during these events gave us the concept of "smoke-filled rooms."

The current system of selecting presidential candidates for the general election is a chaotic combination of primaries and caucuses, voting for candidates and voting for delegates to the party's convention, proportional and winner-take-all (and winner-take-most!) awarding of a state's delegates to the convention, and a myriad of rules that affect the outcome of presidential candidate selection.

Since we have changed things before, maybe they should be changed again.  Contributor and reader Andy Garcia has some ideas:

A FINAL NATIONAL SUPER TUESDAY

The selection of candidates for the presidency of the most powerful and influential nation in the world is currently governed  by a hodgepodge of ever changing rules that differ from party to party, from state to state and from year to year. These inconsistent, confusing and sometimes unfair rules, combined with the special privileges allotted to Super Delegates who have the power to skew or nullify the votes of millions, can leave voters and candidates feeling manipulated, disenfranchised and resentful, and can cause many to believe the game is fixed and not worth their further involvement or concern.

 We can do better than this. And the fix is easy.

Standardize the election rules for all the states and territories, including rules protecting voting rights.

Do away with delegates so that each vote cast has the same weight as every other vote and the winner is decided not by some after the fact convoluted set of rules but simply by a counting of votes.

After each state has held a primary election, after the candidates have been vetted by months of campaigning and some contenders have fallen to the wayside, all the votes from all the states and territories can be calculated. Then let there be a National Super Tuesday when the top 2 remaining contenders from each party offer themselves up to the voters of their respective parties one last time. Those who voted early for other candidates that did not make the cut, those whose minds have been changed by months of campaigning, and those who neglected to vote in the first place, will all have a chance to offer their opinions.

And then, with the primaries declared over and the will of the people confirmed, the conventions can be called to order.

-- Andy Garcia, Long Beach CA

 

America gets a lesson in hostile takeovers in politics

The term "hostile takeover" has, until now, been reserved for use in business and the arcane world of "high finance."  A company, or an investor, or a group of investors publicly puts up money to acquire another company against the wishes of the senior management of the target firm.  Both sides usually talk a lot about "maximizing shareholder value;"  accusations and denunciations fly back and forth.  The conversation becomes heated and the environment is hostile.  As of now, it looks like we are seeing something similar happen in national politics:  Donald J. Trump is accomplishing a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.

In the world of finance, the acquiring party, if successful, ends up with something new that can be reworked and molded to make a profit for the winner.  (When not successful, the rebuffed party usually goes in search of new prey.)  Since Trump is nothing if not a denizen of the world of high finance, I have to wonder if there is a lesson to be learned in his apparent success in becoming the Republican Party's presidential nominee against the wishes of the GOP's senior management.

Trump's nomination does not become official until the party convention in July.  Between now and then, what is left of the GOP senior management will have to accept Trump's leadership.  Yes, as its presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump becomes the national leader of the Republican Party.  Try, for a while at least, to wrap your mind around that fact.  If you don't succeed, try again; eventually it will sink in.

With Trump as its leader, the Republican Party will change in some big ways.  Here are a few of them:

First -- Civility and good manners.  Remember George H. W. Bush?  Remember Ronald Reagan?  Remember Trump's behavior in the debates?  Need I say more?

Second -- America as a world leader.  Let's think about the leadership value of walls, as an example.  There was the Berlin Wall, built by a couple of failed and now nonexistent countries known as the Soviet Union and East Germany.  At least they paid for their own wall; Trump would put up a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and make the Mexicans pay for it.  As you probably know, Mexico's leadership thinks this idea is dead on arrival.  Trump would forcibly deport millions of undocumented immigrants, including those with natural-born American children.  If you remembered President Ronald Reagan, then you probably remember how he and the Republican Party -- along with the Democratic Party; they did these things together in those days -- created millions of new citizens and permanent residents under similar circumstances during the 1980s.

Again on America as a world leader -- Another example:  Trump's idea about encouraging the spread of nuclear weapons, which sounds to me like a violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Let's see, what other country might be doing something similar?  North Korea, perhaps?  That's a nation that is usually described as "rogue" or "pariah" but not "world leader."  (North Korea is not currently a party to the NPT; it withdrew from the agreement, apparently at about the time that it started its nuclear weapons program.)  The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has had strong Republican support for decades.  Trump apparently has different ideas on that subject.

Third -- International trade.  Since the end of the Second World War, the Republican Party has been a hard-core supporter of the growth of international trade.  With Trump in charge -- well, not so much any more.  The business of trade among sovereign nations can always be improved, but Trump's proposals are mostly policies of the past which did not work well then, and show no promise of working well now.

Fourth -- Reduced government, lower taxes.  What could be more Republican than those two themes?  And yet, Trump will punish American businesses -- using taxation policies and regulations -- when they manufacture their products outside the United States.

Fifth -- Religious freedom.  Trump wants to track all Muslims in America, and keep more from entering.  Has he ever read the first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?  Unless I have been hallucinating the news for the last few decades, it seems to me that both Republicans and Democrats can get real itchy when they think that some government action is going to infringe their religious freedoms.  If official tracking of adherents to a particular religion is not a serious infringement on religious freedom, then perhaps the first Amendment has no real meaning for any religion in America.

There is much more, of course.  But this is enough for now.

Will Rogers once said "I am not a member of any organized political party.  I am a Democrat."  That was said at a time when Democrats lacked the political discipline of Republicans, which condition was more-or-less consistent for decades.  Perhaps it is a condition that applies to both political parties today.

Trump's hostile takeover will impose some new type of discipline on the Republican Party.  The big question is:  How much of the old Republican Party will be tolerated by the new discipline?  We will find out in a few months.