Party Competition and Responsible Party Government: A Theory of Spatial Competition Based Upon Insights from Behavioral Voting Research Hardcover by James Frolik Adams (Author) http://www.amazon.com/Party-Competi...+Competition+and+Responsible+Party+Government
OK, I will note the article in the OP is 5 years old, but it did contain this worthwhile passage: "Barack Obama is Exhibit A about the value of holding primaries," said James Adams, a political scientist at the University of California at Davis, who studies how political parties around the world choose leaders. "A lot of Democratic Party elites did not know what a good campaigner he was or would prove to be. Candidates like Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani may be Exhibit B about the value of holding primaries, in that they proved less appealing than their press clippings would have suggested." Of course, I would take the opposite side of the argument made by the author. Candidates like Barrack Obama and John McCain show the wisdom of the old system, where party bigwigs decided who the candidates would be in smkoe-filled rooms at the conventions. Say what you like about the old-time party bosses, but they knew the potential candidates personally. They would never have nominated a neophyte community organizer like Obama. They probably would not have nominated a despised hothead like McCain either. Would we really be a lot worse off if we had a President Fred Thompson or Rudy Guiliani? Or even, gasp, Hillary Clinton? The downside is we wouldn't have had a Ronald Reagan either.
"...But Adams and mathematician Samuel Merrill III recently showed that the electoral benefits of discovering extraordinary politicians such as Bill Clinton, Reagan and Obama through competitive primaries outweigh the cost of a two-step election process. (The finding ought to please Democrats worried that the continuing Obama-Clinton race will harm their general-election chances.) "It can be so valuable to find out who is a good campaigner and who is a bad campaigner," said Adams. "Holding a primary can help you, and it can especially help you if you are a weak party." Gilles Serra, a political scientist at Oxford University, said primaries tend to produce superior candidates for a number of reasons. First, they expand the pool of possibilities -- outsiders such as Obama can enter the race and be taken seriously, and left-for-dead candidates such as McCain can resurrect themselves and fight on. Second, the millions of people who vote in primaries may be partisans, but they are a closer approximation to the views of the overall country than are small groups of party insiders. Finally, primaries produce leaders who are not beholden to the party establishment -- and these leaders tend to put the interests of citizens firstâ¦." I wonder how the dynamics would change if the US was a multi-party system the way most of the rest of the world is?
"It can be so valuable to find out who is a good campaigner and who is a bad campaigner," said Adams. "Holding a primary can help you, and it can especially help you if you are a weak party." This statement would be more credible if the primary process didn't keep coughing up incredibly bad campaigners on the presidential ticket. Since Reagan, the republicans have fielded George H. W. "Read my Lips..oops never mind" Bush, Bob "Viagra" Dole, George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney. I will wager you could not have found weaker candidates if you had selected them by random drawing, notwithstanding the fact that W Bush won twice. Look who he ran against, an arrogant doofus, Al Gore, and a french-looking traitor/gigolo, John Kerry. The primary process empowers candidates who appeal to extreme factions, in both parties, and single issue zealots. It also favors celebrities and the rich. A successful governor can make a credible case to party bosses at the convention and be selected. He might not have the resources or the time to mount a three year ground level campaign. The primary process can dilute the votes for the party's dominant philosophy, ie conservatism for republicans, among several candidates and allow someone who doesn't represent the base's values to prevail, like McCain did. We seem stuck with the primary process, but it can be drastically improved. First, the national parties should control the dates of primaries. Allowing small, unrepresentative states like Iowa and New Hampshire to wield outsized influence is ridiculous. Second, the republicans need to seize control of the debate process from the liberal media. A republican primary debate should never be moderated by some sneering liberal, yet that is the norm. The party should select the moderator. If some cable channel won't go along, so what. There are too many debates anyway. Have four or five on Fox News and be done with it. For the general election, republicans have to recognize that the Presidential Debate Commission is a failure and is controlled by liberals. Let the candidates hash out the terms of the debates between themselves, like they do in statewide elections. This last debate season should have convinced anyone, with the spectacle of some liberal cow moderator jumping into take sides with Obama, erroneously as it turned out.
incredibly good point about the problem of having to spend 3 years on the ground game. I hope the Rs have gotten smart and already establishing a ground game for the 2016 election so that it can be plug and play for the candidate.