Have you ever asked the question "Why do we choose our presidential candidates through primary elections?" Every four years, presidential contenders spend exorbitant sums of money to essentially get elected before the get elected. This may not be good for the country since the candidates need to raise funds to compete on a national scale against their opponents, funds which may come with many strings attached from special interest groups, unless you are a rich son of a bitch who can pay your own way (think Ross Perot, or Mitt Romney).
Do you think it's a good system? Do you think it is a bad system? You probably don't really care enough to even ask the question and have probably already clicked away from this blog to look for embarrassing videos of Britney Spear on YouTube. I know what I'm up against when I spend my time writing an obscure blog about topics only a political scientist might care to read about but if you can put aside your desire to now the latest about that blonde-haired train-wreck for just a moment you may find that the more you know about the primary system the better you may understand what the hell is going on in America for for the next few weeks.
In most countries, presidents are simply ceremonial figures who represent the unified power of the government. They are more like highly regarding civil servants who are expected to sign all legislation that comes out of the country's legislature, take part in national ceremonies, and be "guarantors" of the country's constitution. They are not expected to be "political" or call for certain legislation on this or that topic.
This presidential model is most common in many European countries where the country's monarchy was abolished. In other words, think of Queen Elizabeth II of England who is essentially a figurehead, leads ceremonies, represents the "Crown" (what we would simply call the "government") but doesn't involve herself in political matters. Most presidents in Europe take on a similar role as Queen Elizabeth II and so who the country picks to be president of their country is not an extremely important matter. Typically, the prime minister/premier/chancellor (the American equivalent being the Speak of the House) is the de facto leader of the country who sets the political tone for the country.
But unlike European Presidents, the American President is not a figurehead. The POTUS (President of the United States) takes on a great deal of political power. Since the U.S. Constitution separates power between three branches of government, the Executive Branch does have certain political duties to keep the legislature in check with the power to veto legislation. This makes it impossible for the Speaker of the House to take on the kind of power that Europe's Prime Ministers can yield simply because they have to consider the political desires of the President.
Okay... so where does this leave us? We have a country with a very powerful president when compared to many other states in the world. So we have a primary election because the people want to have a say in who gets selected for election, right? Sort of.
The primary system is a relatively new concept in American politics. The primary election only came about during in the early 1900s during the Progressive movement. Prior to that, the leaders of the political parties simply choose who they thought were the stronger candidates and left the general public out of the decision. Compared to the primary election system we have today, it was a much cheaper way of selecting viable candidates for the presidential election.
But one of the major criticisms of this old method was that in those days cronyism ran amok. These were the days where Congressional committee hearings were held privately, where friends and family were often appointed to high positions in the government over people where were actually more capable. Likewise, who the party leadership chose to lead the party in an election had little to do with the what the people wanted and more to do with who you knew and who owed you a favor.
Along came the the Progressives who opened up committee meeting with so-called Sunshine Laws, passed legislation to end graft and cronyism by creating a Civil Service that would take the most capable workers to lead government positions due to merit and not due to who one knew. Likewise, they pressed for a new system whereby the parties would select their presidential candidates at a nominating convention consisting of delegates representing their home state parties.
How those delegates were chosen have a history all their own. The parties choose their delegates based upon party rules. Unfortunately, for many years those party rules forbade African-Americans were basically from holding any position of responsibility with either party. It was during the middle of the 20th century when each state started to open up their primary in one of two ways:
1. They changed party rules to allow anyone who is legally allowed to vote to be able to caucus in the various delegate precints.
2. They opened up the election of delegates to a popular vote
So here we are today, with a primary system that has evolved from a system that was kept behind closed doors and checkers with discriminatory rules, to a system that is open to anyone interested.
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