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A Citizen’s Guide to Presidential Nominations The Competition for
Leadership
Wayne Steger
Citizen Guides to Politics and Public Affairs Series New York: Routledge, 2015 Paperback. xvii+156 p. 6 figures, 4 tables. ISBN 978-0415827591. $23.95
Reviewed by Jasper M.
Trautsch Universität
Regensburg How to (S)elect a
Presidential Candidate in the United States?
Published, perfectly
timed, right before the beginning of this year’s presidential primaries in the
U.S., Wayne P. Steger’s book is a most welcome introduction to American presidential
nominations. In this succinct and readable book, he skillfully explains in only
about 150 pages how presidential candidates are chosen and who holds power in
the process. Arguing that the nomination procedure can either be an “insider
game,” in which the party establishment seeks to agree on a candidate in
so-called “invisible primaries” before the actual primaries officially commence,
and an “outsider game,” in which the large mass of party identifiers decide on
their preferred candidate during the primaries and caucuses and which usually takes
place when the party leadership is too divided to unite behind a contender
early on, Steger lays bare the many factors determining whom the two major
parties nominate to run for the presidency, such as the level of party
cohesion, the timing of party stakeholders’ coalescence around a candidate, and
the number of contenders that are suitable in terms of their political
positions, viability, and electability. Part of the Routledge Citizen Guides to Politics and Public
Affairs series – a collection of easy-to-read and concise overviews of
important aspects of American politics, addressed to students and the general
public and intended to help citizens fully understand the U.S. political system
– Steger’s book is well-written, informative, and reliable. It will serve very
well all those interested in finding out more about how the nominating process
works, which can sometimes appear utterly confusing amidst the media circus
accompanying it. Indeed, the release of this highly relevant volume on
presidential primaries was certainly warranted, not only because of the
significance that the primaries have for the American political process but
also because many people will not be familiar with the many intricacies of the nomination
procedure. After all, many observers might wonder: why voting takes place at
different dates in the various states; what the difference between primaries
and caucuses is; how the modern primary and caucus system developed; and why
the primaries sometimes produce dark horse candidates, while at other times
they only confirm the candidate the media have deemed most likely to win for
many months before. While the contributions
to the Citizen Guide series are
primarily meant to be informative and not to advance revisionist theses (and
therefore do not lend themselves to critical review), it is still possible to
discern and discuss two claims, which form the normative basis of Steger’s
analysis. First, he seems to take for granted that primaries and caucuses, in
which party members democratically choose the party’s presidential candidate in
elections, are better than other methods of selecting frontrunners. Welcoming
the changes made to the nominating process in the 1970s, when backroom deals and
negotiations by party stakeholders at national conventions were replaced by open
elections at the state level, Steger is mainly concerned with finding out whether
the procedural alterations fulfilled what they were expected to achieve, i.e. whether party identifiers actually
have obtained the power to choose candidates of their own liking or whether the
leadership’s wishes in fact still determine the outcome. Alternative selection
procedures are not discussed. Second, Steger assumes that the more democratic
the nomination process is, the better. He is critical of party establishments unifying
behind and channeling their resources towards a certain candidate early on and
thus effectively making the decision, which the party members then are expected
to only symbolically confirm by their votes. Competitive races, in which
candidates have to try hard to appeal to and win the favor of the party faithful,
seem preferable. While to an American
audience these assertions might seem unproblematic (it is unlikely that the
institution of presidential primaries and caucuses will be replaced in the
foreseeable future), a reader from Europe (where, in most states, and particularly
in parliamentary as opposed to presidential democracies, candidates running to
head the national governments are selected in different ways) might have wished
for a more balanced discussion of the benefits and risks inherent in the
American nominating system – not least because demands that primaries be
introduced to Europe have become ever more frequent in recent years. Particularly
after Barack Obama’s surprising nomination as presidential candidate of the
Democratic Party in 2008, many commentators on the eastern side of the Atlantic
applauded America’s democratic primary system, lamenting that such an unconventional
choice would have been hardly possible in the “Old World” with its entrenched and
inflexible political structures. However, one might wish to take into account that democratic primaries tend to lead to the selection of more “radical” candidates who take non-compromising partisan stances on political issues and promise non-wavering commitment to the party’s ideology. As a result, voters in the presidential elections might be presented with two “extreme” nominees and thus be deprived of the option of voting for a “moderate” contender representing the political center. The current Republican primaries are a case in point. According to Steger’s framework, they are proceeding in the best possible way: they are an open contest over which the party establishment has lost control. “Rogue” candidates directly appeal to the party members, not only defying the party establishment’s wishes but actually turning their “outsider” status to maximum political advantage. However, whether the result will be ideal – no matter whether Donald Trump or Ted Cruz receives most delegates – is a different question. Admittedly, at the
very end of the book, Steger concedes that more democratic nomination
procedures may “produce outcomes that are less representative of the general
public,” because those voting in presidential primaries and caucuses are “quite
a bit more liberal or conservative than the average citizen” [152]. However, he
maintains that the polarization that characterizes current U.S. politics has
only affected the legislature but not the executive, arguing that – to become
President – a candidate must win the support of a heterogeneous alliance of
voters and thus “shift toward the ideological center once they are nominated” [153],
whereas – to be elected to Congress in their local election districts – a
candidate must appeal to a much smaller and usually more homogeneous electorate.
While it may be true that congressional candidates are more likely to be
ideological hardliners than presidential ones, the increasing influence of
party activists on the presidential nominations that Steger traces throughout
his book would allow one to conclude that democratic presidential primaries, in
which party activists choose candidates on the basis of the ideological purity
of their political views, would also make it less likely for moderate
candidates seeking compromise and willing to reach across the aisle to be
nominated [28].* In any case, whether candidates should be elected by all party
members, whether they should be selected by the party establishment, or whether
yet another system integrating both approaches could be found is a question
worth exploring in more detail. ____________________ *Other characteristics of the modern
nominating systems also call for more caution when discussing their democratic
virtues. Democratic primaries are much more expensive than nominations
resulting from negotiations between the party leaders, since candidates have to
campaign across the country and finance TV commercials and other media ads to
promote themselves among the party electorate. As a result, acquiring the
financial support of influential lobby groups and wealthy individuals has often
been a precondition for a successful campaign – a development that is at odds
with the goal of giving ordinary people a larger role in the nomination
process. Finally, one might wish to consider that the primaries – in being
candidate-based – undermine the political role of parties in the political process
and tend to make the screening of the contenders’ personalities more important
than the debating of political issues.
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