Crafting a Better Presidential Nominating Process

Even though it is 22 months before the next general election and 17 months before the major parties hold their political conventions, the 2020 presidential campaign is already underway.  However, the leadership of neither major party seems interested in crafting a nominating process likely to produce a candidate capable of governing.   

This is not a new problem. At its heart is an obsessive emphasis on primaries as the way to evaluate and filter potential candidates.  This allows too much focus on personal charisma and rhetorical skills and only incidental discussion of issues important to the public and how to resolve them.  It also leaves the nomination process open to manipulation by wealthy moguls using their money to pursue narrow motives.    

The problem was front and center in 2016 when both major parties botched their presidential search, producing two flawed nominees.   

The Democratic leadership tilted the process in favor of Hillary Clinton, even though many party faithful viewed her as too cozy with corporate elites and too concern for her own political and financial fortunes.  Superdelegates drafted from the party establishment were handed a major role in the nominating process, and both primaries and debates were scheduled to give Clinton an advantage over others. The ease with which she obtained the nomination disguised her lack of broadly based voting strength. Given the critical role of the Electoral College, this led to defeat in November despite winning the popular vote. 

On the other hand, the GOP leadership abdicated responsibility for shaping the nominating process. With a plethora of candidates the Republican National Committee chose to essentially surrender management of the process to the candidates and their wealthy backers. Too many aspirants participated in the numerous debates for any meaningful focus on issues. Relying on celebrity interrogators contributed to the melee, and the aggressive and outrageous persona of Donald Trump prevailed. In all likelihood, Trump will be the GOP nominee again in 2020 and will dictate his party’s nominating process, if there is one.

Current Democratic leaders are ecstatic about the multitude indicating interest in the party’s 2020 presidential nomination.  Obviously encouraged in part by Donald Trump’s low approval ratings, nearly three dozen candidates have made some move towards seeking to be the party’s flagbearer in the next general election. So many in the hunt, however, may distract the party from addressing mistakes which produced the 2016 debacle.  

In mid-December, Tom Perez, Democratic National Committee chairman, revealed a vague plan for 2020 which calls for twelve candidate debates beginning in June 2019.  That is more than a year before the Democratic Convention in July 2020, and eighteen months before the 2020 General Election. And it sounds eerie like the GOP disaster in 2016.

Although Perez said accommodating the large field “is a first-class problem to have,” he did not offer a first-class response as to how the DNC plan to deal with the challenge. No indication of how the debates might be structured nor how questioners would be selected.  No definitive word as to how participants would be determined except to say that one relevant metric would be “grass-roots fund-raising.”

The United States is a representative democracy in which American citizens elect agents to act in our behalf and interest. It cannot function well if the two-way communication between citizens and representatives breaks down.  Historically, political parties with genuine grass roots organizations at all levels of government have been vehicles for facilitating that communication, but in recent years neither major party has performed this function effectively. 

Although primaries were originally viewed as instruments of reform, allowing greater say in the nomination process for the general public, today’s primaries are controlled by a very small slice of the electorate usually energized around narrow interests. Little time is spent by candidates during the primaries actually listening to the public. Voter surveys are disseminated by candidates and parties, but the vacuous questions confirm their purpose is fundraising not enlightenment.    

Instead of placing so much emphasis on primaries, the DNC would do well to explore initially ways in which to engage prospective voters in discussions about the problems that concern them.  State or regional forums focused on specific concerns could be held during 2019.  Expert authorities could be invited to participate in the forums as well as potential candidates, but there would be dialogue, not sermons.

Maybe it is pie in the sky to believe either major party would be willing to invest so much time and energy in listening to the American public. It’s much easier to organize campaign rallies and to fill the airways and social media with 30 second commercials that oversimplify and overpromise. Given the dysfunction of our government today, however, the survival of the major parties likely depends on crafting a presidential nominating process that produces not just electoral victory but also the capacity to govern.