Presidential Nomination Races - Essay Example

Presidential Nomination Races Introduction The Republican Party is the second oldest political party in the US after the Democratic Party. The Republican Party rose in 1854 to battle the Kansas Nebraska Act which threatened to spread out slavery into the territories, and to endorse more dynamic economic modernization. It had virtually no supporters in the South; nevertheless in the North it recruited most former Free Soil Democrats and former Whigs to form majorities. This was experienced by 1858, in virtually each Northern state (Rutland, 1996). Throughout the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and its triumph in leading the Union to victory and obliterating slavery, it came to govern nationally until 1932. The Republican Party was based on northern white Protestants, professionals, businessmen, wealthier farmers, factory workers and blacks. It was pro-business, supporting the gold standard, banks, railroads and high tariffs to safeguard heavy industry and the industrial workers. This paper will discuss major aspirants for the Republican Party nominations in the 1876 and 1996 presidential races. The paper will also compare the difference between the two nominations processes used in candidate selection (Rutland, 1996). As the preferred son of Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes had much in his favor in the 1876 race. Both reform and regular Republicans liked him. This was because he was a war hero, who had supported Radical Reconstruction lawmaking and campaigned for Negro suffrage, and emanated from a big swing state (Rutland, 1996). His repute for honesty was exceptional, and his backing of bipartisan boards of state institutions commended him to reformers. Hayes understood that "availability" was his utmost strength. "Availability" worked for Hayes since James G. Blaine, the prime candidate and the preferred nominee for partisan Republicans, was blemished by accusations of corruption. Another contender, Oliver P. Morton, Radical’s favorite, was in ill health. Mr. Benjamin H. Bristow, the favorite nominee of reformers was a denunciation to Grant and Roscoe Conkling, the typical spoils politician, was undesirable to Blaine and to reformers. This meant that none of the contenders could assemble the votes of the mainstream convention. Through the fifth ballot, Hayes had collected votes, and by the seventh, he had finalized the nomination (Ceaser & Busch 1997). By 1875, the Republican Party was in trouble. A severe economic dejection followed the Panic of 1873 and outrages in the Grant administration had smudged the party's reputation. This led to rising unemployment, falling crop prices and corruption in high places. This augured ill for the Republicans. Ohio Republicans turned to Hayes, their superlative vote-getter, to run against the inescapable Democratic governor (Rutland, 1996). Once again, Hayes won a close race, with 5,544 votes out of virtually 600,000 votes cast and was instantly spoken of as a nominee for the 1876 Republican presidential nomination. Hayes, a former Congressman and Governor of Ohio was selected for the presidency by the Republican Party in Cincinnati at the Republican National Convention, with New York Congressman William Wheeler chosen as his running mate (Ceaser & Busch 1997). Going into the 1996 race, the former vice-presidential nominee and Senate Majority Leader, Bob Dole was extensively seen as the prime candidate. Dole had noteworthy name recognition, as he was a twofold time presidential entrant - in 1980 and 1988. This projected and promoted him with high chances of triumph during the nomination against runners up nominees. Some of them included the most conventional U.S. Senator Phil Gramm of Texas and most uncontroversial U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania (Gienapp, 1986). The uneven turf of candidates, which moreover incorporated journalist and 1992 presidential entrant Pat Buchanan and magazine commissioner Steve Forbes, discussed issues, for example, a flat tax and other tax cut proposals. Other matters discussed included coming back to supply-side economics dogmas propagated by Rutland (1996). Dole won the Iowa Caucus with 26% of the vote, a substantially smaller sideline of victory than was projected. In the New Hampshire Primary, Buchanan chronicled a startling victory over Dole, who completed in second place. Subsequently in other primaries and caucuses, Buchanan received more successes in Louisiana and Alaska while Forbes won contests in Arizona and Delaware (Taylor, 1972). These outcomes put Dole's anticipated front runner rank in uncertainty throughout the determinative months of the primary season. Dole then succeeded in winning every primary subsequently plus North and South Dakota. This finally gave him adequate delegate assurances to assert status as the GOP presidential ostensible nominee. The delegates at the Republican National Convention officially nominated Dole on August 15, 1996 as the GOP presidential entrant for the general election (Gienapp, 1986). In the beginning of 1796, the Republican Party presidential nominee selection process was done through a non-public process. The party would have an agreement and select its nominees behind closed doors through party caucuses. Delegates to the national convention were nominated at state conventions whose individual delegates were designated by conventions at the district level. Occasionally, they were controlled by maneuvering amid political elites who ruled delegates. The convention at national level was far-off from being transparent or democratic leaving the overall public with no direct input (Bernheim, 1888). In the early 1990s, a wave of reformers known as progressive era reformers brought about presidential primaries since the corrupt bosses had dominated the convention system. Presidential primary was a way to measure widespread opinion of candidates, as opposed to the opinion of the bosses (Ceaser & Busch, 1997). Presidential primary turned out to be the only effective means of breaking the power of the party boss. This was by permitting a party elector to show his or her inclination for contestants for a party's appointment to office by undisclosed ballot in a primary state-run election. The notion of political primaries initiated serious consideration and debate in the 19th century, on apprehensions on political corruption in the political parties and the candidates’ nomination process. At the same time, modern primaries have little resemblance to their historical predecessors. The objective of the primary election’s evolution, however, can be perceived as demonstrating a logical power loss by the party bosses. That power was progressively relinquished to individual voters (Gienapp, 1986). By the mid of the 19th century, it was clear that political reforms were required because of prevalent corruption all through the entire system. Bernheim (1888) voiced on the abundant cancer which was part of physique politic. This was in reference to the venality of the holders of offices, who had limited intelligence and were highly corrupt. This confirmed that people had either passed on too much authority, or disseminated it badly. A perfect way in which too much authority had been assumed to political elites was in the jurisdiction of appointing entrants to political office. Taylor (1972) delivers a fashionable interpretation of the manner in which political parties operated in this regard: "The initial forms of party movement in the United States, and particularly in the city of New York, were correspondingly simple. Nominations were typically prepared by legislative caucus. They included state legislators for state officers and by congressmen for national elections (Taylor, 1972). Political authority, in respect to nomination, was concerted in the influences of a few political elite. Although it does not automatically follow that this concentration of authority points to corruption, it traditionally did through political aid and other abuses. Robinson (2001) notes that, the fabricated system under which we live results to party organization, caucuses and primaries. He is relatively clear in likening party organizations with the leaders that colonize them, by what he calls a political pulling wire. Even as primaries dwelled, although not in every state, they remained often as shadowy affairs, influenced by party bosses and elites. These nomination processes and meetings were unwelcomed since they symbolized a flawless path for exploitation and political patronage. They were also intensely undemocratic. Moves were thereby prepared to permit distinct voters to have a say in the nomination process. This enlargement of the electorate assisted in bearing fruit in the modern times (Ceaser & Busch, 1997). Petitions to augmented democracy were frequently idealized for party leaders were reluctant to give up their authority. This was because they justifiably feared to loss control of the nomination process due to the effects on the prospects of their politics. In other instances, they objectively regretted mislaying the level of influence since it was predestined that they could not influence it into material gains or bribes. As Bernheim (1888) so magnanimously put it about the crack of the era, the primary party is the cascade of government representatives. Its impurities will contaminate the entire public service, damage the leading party, and completely harm its members. Rutland (1996) writing a few years before, agrees that the basis of all power is the voice of the common man. The indispensable condition of a fair vote is an open choice. The glitches with devising an entirely democratic and open nomination process, nevertheless, is that pragmatic problems, exclusively logistical ones, prevent endorsing direct democracy on a comprehensive local or a national level. As Bernheim (1888) states, "It would seem, hence, that our scheme of political parties need to principally place the assortment of our candidates and the affirmation of our philosophies in the influences of a small marginal of capable but moderately unscrupulous and selfish men. He would comprehend the glitches not as the application of power in the influences of the few, but somewhat in fixing power in the influences of the mistaken few. Clearly the new systems were not promptly successful. The 1912 Presidential Election was barely a conquest for direct popular control of the nominating process (Bernheim, 1888). The modern era of Presidential nomination politics began in 1970, succeeding a report entitled as the mandate for the Reforms by Fraser McGovern’s Commission. These restructurings conclusively took control of nomination from party elites and made it more dependent on individual voter choice and democracy for the purposes of choosing presidential candidates, once and for all (Taylor, 1972). Present-day primary elections normally function as follows: voters specify their preference for the party entrant in an undisclosed ballot election. This contender may then be established by a party convention (Ceaser & Busch, 1997). An alternate process is through caucuses, which are informal meetings that suggest contenders and outline party policy. In presidential elections, utmost states have election primaries, while only a few, remarkably Iowa, hold Caucuses. On the local and state level, election primaries are commonly seen as a fair method to determine the entrant. By law, distinct party primaries are delimited to voters registered with that precise party. This is a "closed" primary, as incongruent to open primary where any enumerated voter can cast a poll (Taylor, 1972). The magnification of primary elections in Delaware historically emulated their upsurge across the nation, denoting that they trailed the general trend of restricting the power of party elites in selecting the candidate (Taylor, 1972). The primary tool functioned exactly in the mode that the 19th century reformers had planned. This was an amplification of the poll that detached the pronouncement from the influences of political leaders and handed it over to distinct voters. There is a thoughtful gulf in American politics amid those people whose lives are administrated by political deed (party employees, party activists, lobbyists, and ideologues and devoted partisans) and the middling American elector. Therefore, it is in the best comforts of those former actors to maintain control over all parts of the political process, particularly nomination processes (Bernheim, 1888). It is unmanageable to dispute that they should be deprived of the prospect to attempt and improve their personal self-interest. This is through elimination when it clatters with what is paramount on behalf of the American general public as a whole to be safeguarded at all expenses. This is even if it battles contrary to what elites understand to be in the best welfare of the common man are involved. Conclusion Political parties must take the primary system in the manner it stands. This is because attempting to go in reverse would be challenging for individual citizens to consent. Whereas they cannot be able to conclusively select a contender as they were capable to in the historical past, they still are capable of strongly influencing the eventual choice of contender in other ways. These methods could hypothetically include sturdily commending those persons running or not running, or by surreptitiously rendering one entrant better than another. These more delicate manipulations may be unavoidable and indeed desirable, as long as they aid to provide voters with more, better choices. References Bernheim, A. C. (1888). "Party Organizations and their Nominations to Public Office in New York City." Political Science Quarterly. New York: New York Times. Ceaser, J. W., & Busch, A. E. (1997). Losing to Win: The 1996 Elections and American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Gienapp, W. E. (1986). The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852– 1856. New York: Oxford University Press. Robinson, L. (2001). The Stolen Election: Hayes versus Tilden—1876. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. Rutland, R. A. (1996). The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush. Columbia. Missouri: University of Missouri Press, Rowman & Littlefield. Taylor, T. (1972) .The Book of Presidents, New York: Arno Press. Read More