Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00 Today on an incomplete history. Hilary, now we'll be discussing the history of primaries in United States. Have you ever wondered whether there was a primer in a caucuses or when exactly the primaries became the way the major political parties in the United States decided who their candidate would be every four years for president today on an incomplete history, we do a deep, deep dive into the history of primaries, caucuses, the emergence of a two party system, national conventions, all of that, and more on an incomplete history. So presidential primary season is upon us.
Speaker 3 00:57 We're a disaster.
Speaker 0 01:01 I didn't quite realize how much of a train wreck the primary scene
Speaker 3 01:08 was until I started researching for this episode. I agree. And I went down a rabbit hole with it because the reason we're doing this episode I want to say is because my mom asked me, she goes, can you do an episode on the primaries? And I was like, Oh yeah, that's easy. No, it's not. It's so complicated. It makes no sense. And I'm, I'm sad, real sad about it. The more I tried to make it make sense, the hug the worst. My head hurt. Yeah, I did to, I did have some good takeaways though. I think that we can cover some stuff to help make a little bit of sense of how it came about and why it is the way it is. But I don't think anybody's going to walk away thinking that it's a good idea to continue these. I think they, I'd also leave saying, but maybe it's not a good idea to discontinue them either. That's true. But then what do we do, you know? Oh my gosh, it's a disaster.
Speaker 0 02:07 Uh, so we're recording this episode in February. Um, and we've gotten one primary and two caucuses
Speaker 3 02:16 down rider done and we'll have to discuss the difference between those.
Speaker 0 02:21 Well, and then there is a, a primary coming up in South Carolina.
Speaker 3 02:27 Yes. And then that's kind of the official end of the early primary season. And then we got super Tuesday coming up
Speaker 0 02:34 Tuesday. And, um, so let's, I mean, first let's like clarify primaries as we understand them today are a 20th century phenomenon.
Speaker 3 02:46 Yes. And, and actually, as we understand them today are sort of a late 20th century phenomenon. Even though I started 1968 that's right. Even though primaries, as we know them started during progressive era, what we really know today kind of take shape in 1968. But I think it's important to go back to the beginning to say what was going on before that. So I can kind of take us a little bit through that and then head into the progressive era. Does that sound okay? That sounds fantastic. Okay. So I started wondering what's going on here, and there's a consensus that this starts taking place in the progressive era, but what's going on before that? And I didn't know what was going on before that, but it makes sense during the progressive era why this reform took place. But in the beginning there was no opposition to George Washington's, uh, first or second term as president.
Speaker 3 03:44 And when he announced that he was not going to be seeking a third term and kind of set the precedent for that, the congressional caucus came to be. And what that means is it's sort of based on a parliamentary system where the party picks the nominee. So you had these people who were already in power already, you know, um, empower in their own States, in their own right and in their own with their own interests. Even though political parties as we know them today were not established at that time. Um, you had these caucuses that took place with people who are already in power and they put forth a nominee, somebody who day wanted to be the president, represent their interests and whatnot. And so that takes place. The congressional caucus goes on for about a century. Um, and it has some, there's some ebb and flow to it.
Speaker 3 04:44 There's some differences here and there, but really what's happening is that the average American does not have a say in who is going to go up to be, uh, running in the next election. And it's more so the party bosses, the party leaders, the people who already have power, who are making those decisions about who the American people will get to vote for. And so they try to shift that during the progressive era to make it more democratic by allowing everybody to vote. But nobody that, both of the parties as we know them now, both of the parties, um, never really had a means for doing this in a good way, I guess, or in a way that made sense. Um, and it just kind of gets more of, to every time it occurs, I would say. Well, I mean, let me ask you this.
Speaker 3 05:39 Um, so how do we end up with multiple candidates from one party on the presidential ballot? Well, so I think it's like a threat, right? So every time that you have somebody who's the presumptive nominee, so let's take the 2016 election for example, even though there are multiple occurrences of this happening, but this is the freshest in our mind. Um, Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee. Will they say, well, you know, people on the left say, well, you're not left enough, so you're going to get primaried. We're going to put somebody else on the ticket. Who's going to represent the interests of the party and the direction we want the party to take by putting up a different candidate. So then Bernie Sanders goes up against Hillary Clinton, even though they're from the same party, but it's more about like the people deciding which direction they want the party to take.
Speaker 3 06:35 But then you get into this like really bad rabbit hole about political parties themselves. And this is something that political scientists have been wrangling with for decades. And you're like, what are political parties? What is the purpose of them? Right? But we won't go down that hole necessarily. But I think it, there's always a threat of being primaried. And so when you look at like the really radical politics that we're seeing right now, it's, I think because people feel threatened by potentially getting primaried will, if I'm not conservative enough, then somebody is going to come into the race because anybody can come into the race, you know? And this is where we start seeing, you know, like in Iowa is just like, well, if nobody knows who the peanut farmer is, well, if he makes a name for himself in Iowa and people vote for him, then that slingshots him forward. Right? Nobody knew who he was before that.
Speaker 0 07:32 So, yeah. So I wanna I want to go back just a little bit to kind of talk about this. Like, so the progressive era reforms are kind of designed it, democratize it a little bit. So we're talking about the early 20th century progressive era, right? Right. So the late, late 19th early 20th century. But I think if you go back, so 1789 this is kind of the first presidential election, only six of the 13 States use the popular vote to choose electors to go to the electro college. So it's not very democratic right off the bat.
Speaker 3 08:11 No, none. Nothing about the United States is very democratic. Particularly in the beginning is that I think that's just such a common misconception about the country, first of all, but it was never intended to be democratic really.
Speaker 0 08:31 So article two of the constitution says that electors submit to those and whoever gets the highest number of votes is president. Whoever gets the second highest is vice president and you end up with some odd situations.
Speaker 4 08:47 Okay.
Speaker 0 08:48 There's the potential with two candidates with very different views. One of them winning one income, one coming second,
Speaker 3 08:56 something that can't happen today. Right? So the 12th amendment. Yeah, they serve together. Right. I mean, that does not work. Um, but, and then you've got kind of,
Speaker 0 09:08 you know, the, the election of 1800 is the, the election that kind of creates all this because you've got this, Thomas Jefferson gets the same number of votes as Aaron Burr.
Speaker 3 09:19 Um, uh, you know, <inaudible>
Speaker 0 09:23 this is the reason Aaron Burr and Hamilton have a dual because Alexander Hamilton kind of influences the house of representatives to pick Jefferson over Burr a bird as and forgive him. And then Burr, I guess consistent revenge.
Speaker 3 09:39 Um, but so
Speaker 0 09:43 as much of a problem as the primaries are, the situation before the primaries is a disaster too,
Speaker 3 09:49 because there's never an established means of election electing somebody. Right. I mean, I don't think that when they were flushing things out, they really considered that this would, this would become a problem so quickly because eight years flies by, I think. Right. And I, and I think that they just didn't have it set up in any way to to address what would happen afterward. And the fact too that there weren't really established political parties at the time, it wasn't clear what was going to happen next.
Speaker 0 10:26 I mean that's an interesting question though, because Madison, we talked about this when we talked about some other sections of the constitution. Madison
Speaker 3 10:35 is very skeptical about
Speaker 0 10:38 the government's ability to prevent factions, right? He's really worried about this. A lot of kind of the early architects of our nation, kind of the political institutions, they're very, they're worried about factionalization
Speaker 3 10:51 and for good reason, right? Because the regional differences and the regional interest, regional economic interests are so varied that you were going to have easy factionalization and there is, right. There are factions that definitely are constructed out of economic and geographic interests, but the 12th amendment kind of makes factions even worse. Yes.
Speaker 0 11:16 Because before the 12th amendment, I mean you do have the possibility of two different candidates, different parties serving together and kind of being forced to work together a little bit. Although the vice president in the early years is kind of meant to be this, this virginal public figure, right? Not involved in anything, just kind of waiting in the wings should they be needed?
Speaker 3 11:39 I think that's still the case. I guess.
Speaker 0 11:44 I think some FEEP vice presidents have taken on many more responsibilities. Um, it kind of waxes and wanes.
Speaker 3 11:51 Um, but I think it
Speaker 0 11:54 served the listers a little bit if we kind of do a quick civics lesson about what primaries are like how do they work. Um, generally speaking, right. There's slight differences between the Republican system and the democratic system. But let's talk about primaries in general, which is the constitution creates a system whereby the president is not elected via popular vote that the president is elected by electors and each state decides how to create those electors, right?
Speaker 3 12:30 Yes. And there isn't consistency amongst the States. I think that's where the confusion comes in.
Speaker 0 12:37 <inaudible> so yeah, these electors, the electors go and they, they're supposed to go to Washington DC and they kind of vote for the president. And that's how the president gets picked. Well now, how do the electors know who to pick, um, and unpopular vote, right? So and well, is it
Speaker 3 13:00 completely well, I mean I think it's supposed to be so I think that's what I mean by the lack of consistency is that some States it does tend to be based on the popular vote of like how many people voted for that person. Then how many electors is assigned to that person. But some, some of them it's winner takes all right. Um, and then some of them, the delegates are split. Um, again, it, it's, it's not consistent amongst the States. And I think that this is just such a product of like the United States is so funny, right? Because like each state's like, Oh, we're going to do our own thing. But then there's like, no, there's no consistency amongst what he's doing. I mean, the idea is,
Speaker 0 13:48 you know, you need to get us electors here to cast votes. How you do that is left up to you. So then the States come with kind of this myriad ways, although it kind of boils down to a couple of key ways. The question then becomes how do the electors decide who they're going to cast their votes for? And if it's electors, you know, it may, is it important the public knows that, especially if it's a state where the public is not voting for electors even?
Speaker 3 14:21 Well, but here's the thing, once you get to the convention, so the whole point of the primary right is the March toward the convention where the nominee is named. And by that time, because we've been following all this, and there's like primary after primary after primary, typically it's clear who the nominee is going to be. And you don't even really need this whole like, well, these electrodes, these electrodes, like it's, it's, it's a formality at that point. Is that fair?
Speaker 0 14:51 Well, delegates, electors, I'm talking about electrics for the electoral college system. Right? But delegates to the convention, you sometimes, yes. Right. We haven't had many contested conventions. I mean, first national convention, 1831 the anti Masonic party.
Speaker 3 15:10 Oh yeah. And then it ended up electing the Mason anyway. Right? Like we're going to get, I'm Bruna get an anti Masonic candidate.
Speaker 0 15:20 Right? So, so even conventions, national conventions aren't a thing that's always been around. Um, you know, there's some time before that happens. Um, but States could, for States that kind of allowed popular votes to select delegates, um, you can end up with widely different groups of people running. Right? Um,
Speaker 3 15:46 yeah, that, that's kind of what's happened historically, right? You do get kind of wide groups of people and, and like underdog candidates are people you've never heard of or people who will launch to popularity who you had never known their name really prior. Um, but, but prior to 1901, there aren't even primaries. No, no. I think it runs more like a parliamentary model, right? Where it's just, well, it's a congressional caucus and the party leaders choose who the candidate is going to be. And arguably because the people, well, I mean, obviously there's issues with voting and I'm not gonna get into that. But like, because those people have been elected to represent you, doesn't that kind of make sense that they would just choose who
Speaker 0 16:38 that's the goal, right. I mean, that's, that's the Republican ideal. And I'm using, I mean, Republican little are Republicans and this is the whole thing is that you voted for this. Um, you know, you voted for this well-educated white guy who owns a book publishing company in Philadelphia, um, and is now retired and doesn't have kind of financial involvement or anything like that. The idea is he makes the best choice for everyone.
Speaker 3 17:09 There's major problems there, by the way. I don't think they're a good thing, but I think at the time, yeah, that's how they,
Speaker 0 17:19 I mean, the whole idea was that most people didn't have a lot of information. Um, illiteracy, lack of education, lack of exposure to kind of larger issues. All of these, the fact the country was a rural nation, all of these things kind of fed into this idea. You needed this person. Now there are people who oppose this from the very beginning,
Speaker 3 17:45 right? Right. Yeah. Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. I mean that it's the anti-federalists they oppose it from the start, right. Because they're wanting to do smaller government sort of things. They don't want there to be like a conglomerate who makes all the decisions for everybody else. I mean there's, um, a lot of strains of like, I guess maybe like a libertarianism, sort of a, what we might call over terrorism or they don't, they want smaller government, smaller. Um,
Speaker 0 18:15 Jefferson says that if this system looks like it's, it's going to be no better than a Polish King. And you know, because this, he says it's like the way of the Polish aristocracy we get together and select a Monarch from amongst them that he's afraid the electoral college is simply going to be this kind of group of elites who are selecting from, amongst themselves.
Speaker 3 18:41 Doing too though. Like it wasn't like, Hmm, this may happen. I mean, that's exactly what happened,
Speaker 0 18:50 but this is where he's worried about, even before it starts. He says this is probably going to happen.
Speaker 3 18:55 Well, he was so right. I mean, but what I will say is like, George Washington I think is such an admirable figure. Obviously there's a lot of problems with George Washington. I don't want any hate mail, but he's an admirable figure because he could have just been like, yeah, I'm gonna stay here until I die. And nobody would've said anything. They would have been like, great,
Speaker 0 19:14 you heard it. Hillary said, George Washington is great. Never did a single wrong thing in his life. I know that's, I mean, this is what we talked about with our snail mail to the cross for that one. I mean, this is what we tell our students about also, right, is it's they ask like, who's your favorite president? Like, who's what heroes in history do you really like? You don't want to go looking in people's, I mean, very few people in history are, are pure, um, are free of doing bad things. Some of them, if you dig just a little bit, you find a lot of bad things. Um,
Speaker 3 19:53 you know, but
Speaker 0 19:55 I mean, Washington hopes to set the precedent for the future.
Speaker 3 19:59 And I, I would argue that that is admirable because again, there would have been no opposition really to him staying in office for a while and he's just like, no, we're not doing that. We're not a monarchy. We're trying to start something new here. But then he leaves, like bounces out of the system and there's like, Oh, what do we do? You know, I mean, it, it creates chaos. Um, and, and then it does end up doing exactly what Thomas Jefferson feared is just, you know, you have a bunch of a wheat people who are picking from amongst themselves. And I don't know how else it could have gone. I mean, it's not until Andrew Jackson that you do see candidate who's like, you know, different, right. But
Speaker 0 20:46 the 1800 is such a mess. It is. And it's because it's not practice. They don't know what they're doing and they're, you know, like you said before, the 12th amendment, you know, to, to cast votes in the same way for the same, uh, for the same office, and then have like a first and second place. I mean, that is just dumb. I don't know why. I don't know why they thought that was a good idea, but live and learn, I guess, huh? Yeah. So, you know, we get the rise of parties. It's initially the Federalists and anti-federalists, the Federalists become the democratic Republicans. Um, the Federalists disappear kind of after 1800 and by the middle of the 19th century, we have the rise of the parties that kind of, they are the two parties we have today, right. The Democrats or Republicans, although they're not exist, they are and they are not the same parties when they flip.
Speaker 0 21:50 Right. There's a flip that happens. Um, but the parties themselves and kind of the national party structure is getting stronger and stronger through the second half of the 19th century. Is that a fair statement? Oh, most certainly. And at the same time, you have the rise of local political bosses. Yes. And I would say that those local politics and the polarizing of the parties and all that kind of paves the way for those progressive reforms of trying to trickle down the decision maybe to locals. Well, the 1901, Florida pliant primary, it uses political bosses, political pauses kind of decide that's really what it is. It's just them kind of deciding, not bosses like tweet boss Tweed, people like that. Right. I mean it's um, you get these political bosses, um, Tammany, right? Tammany hall. Um, so you get this, and in New York is kind of the poster child for this, where the political bosses would kind of meet immigrant ships, kind of political bosses are not particularly wealthy.
Speaker 0 23:13 Right? That's what I find so interesting is like kind of like gophers of sorts, but they wield incredible powers. So, so you've got these political bosses like in the Bowery in New York, and they go down and they find out a ship is arriving from Ireland and they go down and meet the ship. I mean, this is, so this is obviously a gross exaggeration of what happens, but this is kind of the fear of what's going on. And this actually does happen from time to time. They meet the ship and as kind of these Emma, these brand new immigrants get off the ship, they go to the men, because remember, women can't vote right? At this point. They go to each of the men and say like, you know what? Um, I remember what it was like when I first got here. Uh, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to help you find a place to live. I'm going to help you find a good job. I'm going to help you get kind of your family settled. I'm going to find your church to worship in all these things. There's this one thing I'm going to need from you on election day. I'm going to need you to vote however I tell you to vote
Speaker 3 24:18 and maybe vote more than once with the table
Speaker 0 24:20 more than once. Um, and, and the tradeoff CZ, right? If you're a brand new immigrant, it seems like you're giving up nothing to get a lot in return. So the political bosses just wield this incredible power because they can deliver this huge block of votes to candidates and candidates are aware of this. I mean, you're not going to win New York city in the 1870s without catering to political bosses. It's just not going to happen. And political bosses are gay seem to be running the system. Um, you know, I would say after universal white male suffrage happens earlier in the 19th century, um, there's already a growing dissatisfaction with the electoral college system and the primary system, or not the, the lack of a primary system. Um, just kind of furthers this so you get this progressive reaction and they start to try to come up with ideas of primary. So the first one is 1901 and Florida Wisconsin's in 1905, they actually, this is the first time delegates to the national to delegates are actually directly uh, elected by the public in Wisconsin. Um, and by 1912 we have 12 States using something like a primary. Um, the number never tops 20 until after after 68. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 26:02 That is correct. And will the desire for primaries wanes in post world war one era, right? Like they kind of go back
Speaker 0 26:11 to 12, 1936 to 1968 only 12 States.
Speaker 3 26:15 Yeah. They don't use them. They go back, um, after world war one and then all the way, like you said, up until 68, they kind of move away from it. Even though it's a progressive ideology and it's a progressive reform effort and they do use it in the early 20th, they kind of go backwards like, Oh, this doesn't really work. And it's not until 1968 which is always 1968 is always considered this watershed moment in history. If there's anything going on in the, in the 20th late 20th, it's always 1968 1968 and this is no different. It's just such a, it's such a huge moment for so many different reasons in history. But for the election, I mean in, for the primary, it's a very important year for many reasons, right, Jeff?
Speaker 0 27:01 Yes. Everything important happened in 1968. That's what I've heard. Um, but I mean, let's, before we get to 1968 which is its own, I feel like we could do a whole episode about the 1968 democratic national convention disaster. It's just, it's such a mess. But like, so what happens in 1912 that makes the number of States using primaries almost double? What happens in 1912 it's the Republican party, right? It's the Republican party convention. You've got three candidates, William Howard Taft. Um, Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 3 27:44 Oh, that was a nasty now. Yeah. I mean it's just awful, right? Yeah. Oh, it was so sad. Teddy Roosevelt was bullying Taft and
Speaker 0 27:55 well Roosevelt just didn't, so Roosevelt has left, right? Roosevelt, we've kind of thought KIZ kind of form of presidency would be carried on and it wasn't. And he gets really mad. So he jumps back in, decides to run. Eventually Roosevelt after the convention when he doesn't become the nominee, um, goes in forms his own party. Right. Is that the bull moose party? Uh, most political analysts say it costs half reelection. Yeah. Cause it's what's the party, right? <inaudible> Wilson. Yeah. And then Wilson wins. Democrats take control of the presidency and the Republicans decide this is not good. Um, if we had had a primary system that was a little more widespread, we maybe could have prevented this kind of bloodbath at the convention. Um, so we get that, um, what's happening in 1968 in the United States,
Speaker 3 28:58 we could have many apps. We could have an entire podcast about the 1960s and the 1968. But what, just pure historical events. It's like the most turbulent time you have. Um, the Vietnam war is, you know, raging. We have the most troops that are assigned to the war. People are, you know, going left and right. There are a lot of deaths. Um, Martin Luther King is assassinated in 1968. Um, the democratic national convention protests happen. Uh, RFK is assassinated. RFK is assassinated in 60. Yeah, I mean, really honestly is a mess in 1968. Well, let's suffer the democratic <inaudible>
Speaker 0 29:46 party. Let's back up a little cause I think it's important to look in 1960, um, you have two candidates running against one another. Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy, um, both had been junior senators at the same time. They'd come in to the U S Senate at the same time. Um, Nixon had been Twite Eisenhower's vice president, um, and John F. Kennedy was kind of this new fresh face and Nixon and Kennedy, um, it's a really contentious presidential campaign. Um, Kennedy barely wins if he does. In fact, when, I mean, this is the joke, um, in Chicago becomes kind of vote early and vote often. Uh, there's definitely voting irregularities that take place. So Kennedy wins. Nixon's really bitter about it because it looks like maybe on, he might have won actually. Um, but Kennedy wins. Kennedy's president Kennedy gets assassinated in 63 and his vice president Lyndon Johnson becomes president now because Lyndon Johnson, you know, doesn't fill a full term that first time. It means he can theoretically run twice for president. Right,
Speaker 3 31:13 right. Because he's not, he was not elected the first time he runs. Yeah. So 64 he runs for president. Yes. And there's an assumption he's going to run in 68 but he doesn't mess breaks out and it's just a mess. Right. I mean, this is the thing is that the political system had kind of aligned itself is such a way as that if you had an incumbent president, the assumption was that person would run for president again if they were eligible to run. And when he decides not to run, it's chaos in the party. Um, this like huge amount of candidates who emerge and it's unclear who's going to be the nominee
Speaker 0 31:58 and <inaudible> the political bosses are still around. They look different. They aren't meeting boats of immigrants anymore, but they're still kind of wielding huge influence. And the Democrats, um, people within the democratic party start to get really upset about this. Um, because it seems like, uh, candidates being picked for them that nobody's really choosing. Um,
Speaker 3 32:32 so kind of it's important note to say too, I think that this is happening in the midst of rioting right across the country. We have riots going on and over a hundred cities in the wake of the assassination of Dr. King and people are, are riled up about his assassination. People riled up about the war. People are, there's just so much unrest, unrest on college campuses. You have the civil rights movement raging, you've got the second wave feminism going, you've got the war. I mean, there's just so much turmoil in 1968. And then on top of that, I mean, and we ask like, Oh, why does any running again? Well, thank you. He was just done, right? Like I don't blame them.
Speaker 0 33:20 Well, so here's, here's what you've got as right. So, um, Robert Kennedy, who's John F Kennedy's brother is assumed he's, he's doing quite well. Um, he doesn't have more candidates than Hubert Humphrey, but he's got the second most and he seems to be doing pretty well. And June 5th, 1968 he's assassinated in Los Angeles
Speaker 3 33:46 and this is two months prior to the convention. And I think he was well on his way to be. She had a lot of momentum. Yes, he most certainly did. And a lot of momentum. And so
Speaker 0 33:58 you end up with this ridiculous list of candidates. So, um, Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, Channing Phillips, Daniel Moore, Edward Kennedy, who's yet another Kennedy brother, Paul bear Bryant, um, James Gray, senior George Wallace, Julian bond, um, Julian bond.
Speaker 3 34:24 Yes. And does that sound familiar? What all the mess of candidates? Oh yeah. I mean it happened in 2016 and the Republican side and now it's happening right now on the Democrat side. I mean, there are a lot of people who were running in the primary right now. I don't, there isn't a presumptive nominee at this point. And I think that there's chaos within both parties. I mean,
Speaker 0 34:54 so
Speaker 4 34:56 <inaudible>
Speaker 0 34:56 you've got kind of Vietnam, you've got the turmoil with Kennedy being assassinated, you've got kind of this <inaudible>
Speaker 3 35:02 um, uh,
Speaker 0 35:05 Martin Luther King's assassinated assassination, still kind of hanging over the nation. Um, you've got all these different candidates and then you've got States that have competing groups of delicates that show up to the convention.
Speaker 4 35:20 <inaudible>
Speaker 3 35:21 yes. Competing groups. Yes. Because again, there's a lack of uniformity in the way that this is meant to be done. There are really aren't good sets of rules governing any part of it. And it is you, you have like basically a political war break out at the convention because there's no, there's no consensus rules. Uniformity.
Speaker 0 35:50 So Hubert Humphrey wins the nomination had not entered any of the 13 state primary elections that were held
Speaker 3 36:03 name recognition.
Speaker 4 36:05 Okay.
Speaker 0 36:06 And he ends up losing the general election. But there's this widespread feeling that it was Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago and president Johnson who had kind of engineered Humphreys when Humphrey is not, he does not support in into Vietnam.
Speaker 3 36:24 Right.
Speaker 0 36:26 80% of people who had voted in democratic primaries in 1968 supported anti-war candidates. 80%
Speaker 3 36:35 yeah. And so people were super mad about this cause they, again, like you S you mentioned that they felt like they weren't, that it was not democratic, that the people's voices were not being represented. That there was kind of, it's funny, we use like a system is rigged, right? Like you, I've heard that on both sides. And in 1968 that was the rallying cry. And so to think that things are divisive now, I always point people back to 1968 it's like this isn't, this isn't fresh and new
Speaker 0 37:06 and as, as much of a mess is that 68 convention is we now know kind of post Watergate post kind of learning what Nixon's operatives were involved in. There was a lot of tampering going on in that election. The primary seat.
Speaker 3 37:20 Because at the end of the day it's still elites who are running all of it. I mean I hate to sound like you know conspiracy theorists, cause we've talked about this before, but there are a lot of elite people, lots of people with money who are heavily involved in the selection of candidates. And if it's going a different direction, those forces are really tough to fight against. And yes, the hindsight is 2020 but like that's why history is important because we've learned these lessons, we know that these things have happened, we know that we're capable of doing it and it's important to know that and understand that. So we can see the root of what continues to go on that. Like we talk about the primaries as being like a more democratic process, but like at the end of the day, and we see it in 68 and we know it when we investigate what's happening with Nixon laters like they're still powerful elite forces that are kind of puppeteering a lot of what's happening. And it of course, upsets people, particularly in the midst of so much civil unrest to begin with.
Speaker 4 38:33 Yeah.
Speaker 0 38:34 So 1968 democratic national convention, uh, the McGovern Frazier commission kind of establishes some new guidelines. Uh, they had a commission on party structure and delegate selection and a couple of major things come out of this, um, kind of clear guidelines about delegate selection, openness and how they're selected. Um, and party leaders can no longer hand-select people who are going to go to the delegate to the convention. However, super delegates come out of the 60. This book govern Frazier commission as well. Let's order superdelegates. Let's talk about superdelegates. Superdelegates are they harken back to that whole little our Republican ideal? Correct. And what do you mean when, what way? Well, that there are this unpledged delegate that's going to kind of vote in a way we all kind of trust is best for the party.
Speaker 5 39:38 Does that happen?
Speaker 0 39:41 Well, no, but I mean this is the idea, right? Is that, um, so what it says, I mean the, the, the rule, you can kind of look at it, the chairs and vice chairs of each state and territorial democratic party charter and 12 national committee man and committee women elected to represent their state's top officials of the DNC itself is several of its auxiliary groups such as the democratic attorneys general association, the national Federation of democratic women, young Democrats of America, and 75 at-large members who are nominated by the party chairman and chosen by the full DNC. Most of the at-large members are local party leaders, officeholders and donors or representatives of important democratic constituents, organized labor. There were 437 DNC members who were superdelegates in 2016. Now, not all of them give those, there are only, only 400, three 33 of them give votes. I mean that's huge. And I mean what is that? And Republicans have adopted super delegates as well. The numbers, smaller three super delegates in each state. It's usually the state chairman and two national committee members.
Speaker 5 41:01 Um, but
Speaker 0 41:06 I mean are superdelegates democratic?
Speaker 5 41:14 No,
Speaker 3 41:16 no, but I mean, I'm going to say what I said earlier. This country is not a democracy. It's not meant to be a democracy in its, do I think that that would be great? Yeah. It just wasn't in that manner. It's, it was never meant to function. We're one vote is one vote and one person's voice is one person's voice and then whoever has the most has it. Because if that were the case, then Hillary Clinton would be president. It's, it is a system designed to keep the status quo, to keep elite people in power, to keep people with money. Right. So you set that magic word donors, right. Get to be a super delicate. What does that mean?
Speaker 0 42:06 Well, I think so the donors thing, that's a problem on its own, but I think it's interesting and to 2016 superdelegates kind of many people suddenly became aware of superdelegates. But February 12th, 2016 Wendy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was then chair of the democratic national committee is on CNN and Jake Tapper asks her a question, right? What do you tell voters who are new to the process? Who say this makes them feel like it's all rigged and Shults his response. Um, just get ready to wince at this response. Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don't have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists. And so we separate out those unpledged delegates to make sure there isn't competition between them. Your eye, it's undemocratic.
Speaker 3 42:59 It's, it is and, but unapologetically so, yeah, I mean to say that completely unapologetically, like I think that I, I don't think that there is a desire to change that. And because, and I see it happening right now in the current election cycles. Like they don't want the people to choose who is going to be the candidate. Is that fair? I don't know. They write the democratic establishment. I will be more clear. The democratic establishment does not want the people in the United States to choose who is going to be the candidate. And I think it's cause like, well, we have your best interest in mind and this is not in your best interest. So we're going to save you from yourselves. You dummies.
Speaker 0 43:52 Well, that's why I say it's smacks of the old little, our Republican ideal. Right? The idea that that you rubes don't know enough to pick somebody and you might pick some crazy person.
Speaker 3 44:01 Well now it's what they think.
Speaker 0 44:04 So we're here to steady the ship and make sure daddy and mommy pick the correct person.
Speaker 3 44:11 Let me <inaudible>
Speaker 0 44:13 it's very patronizing. It's very patronizing, right? I mean her, even the language is patronizing. Uh, don't have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists,
Speaker 3 44:26 be in a position. That's the whole saying like, you're going to get primaried. Yeah, I like you. You're going to get primaried meaning like anybody can run and you know, if you don't get in line in the way that we want you to, olden people run against you and we may get support and like grassroots activism has been heavily influential on the last say, 15 years of politics.
Speaker 0 44:56 So 20 so 2020 it, it will return to that. But I just want to mention this, 2020 so there was this super delegate reform measure that was implemented. Um, 2020 is gonna be a litmus test for this reform measure. Superdelegates cannot vote on the first nominating ballot.
Speaker 3 45:18 So that's going to be interesting. That's going to be interesting that there's not going to be the super delegates for the first round of voting because that really may shift the outcome in ways that the democratic establishment is not gonna be pleased with.
Speaker 0 45:33 They can vote in the first round if somebody has more than 50% of all delegate votes.
Speaker 3 45:39 But with the amount of candidates right now, I don't know if that's going to happen,
Speaker 0 45:45 but notice that allows, so say candidate a has 50% candidateB has 40% the superdelegates can come in and vote for candidate B in the first round. That's true. So they can still, they can save us from ourselves
Speaker 3 46:03 back to like the 1912 situation. Right? Where like the splitting the party sort of thing. It's interesting that the splitting the party is happening in the primaries because like I would say, and this happened in 2016 in the Republican side, like the party was split so much that it ended up being that no, nobody really like went over the 50% and that scenario for the Republicans and Democrats continue like the number that are in right now stay in. Nobody's going to get over 50%.
Speaker 3 46:38 Possibly. I mean that, that's my, yeah. And, and, and I would just say that I think that it's going to be both parties are already so polarized and then there's a splitting of the party within their own primaries. Um, and it just further complicates things because at this point in 2016, we knew who the nominee was going to be. Right. I mean, we just knew. Um, and then of course, every time before that, we've just known by like March, you just know who the nominee is going to be and we're marching into March. Um, and, and I don't know, I mean, I, I have, I have a feeling, but I don't know. I think that,
Speaker 0 47:21 well, so how can it be what you were sitting at the end of February? We're on the Eve of the South Carolina primary, so New Hampshire
Speaker 3 47:30 and South Carolina have primaries. Nevada and I will have caucuses. So what's the difference between those two things? Well, some States have primary, some States have caucuses. Again, this has to do with each state gets to choose what they wanna do. Um, caucusing is so interesting because it depends on people. It's so weird. It to me, it's odd that it was a progressive era invention of sorts because to me it feels very 18th century Tavern behavior, right? You're gathered around your whiskey barrel, you gather at this place and it's usually like whiskey and it's a tell you why you should vote for my candidate. And that's what, that's what it is. I mean, you show up to this like public location, like a school gymnasium or a library or I don't know that you show up to these like public locations that are, and there are lots of them throughout the state and you, you literally walk to different parts of the room.
Speaker 3 48:32 Like, okay, this is the side of the corner where you vote for Jeff in this corner over here is Hillary. And then like the Jeff people in the Hillary people are like calling each other over like, Hey, come over here. Like you said. I mean like we've got whiskey and I don't, I don't think you're allowed to bribe people, but like you are standing where you want to vote for the person. And I was watching this, they're taking down the numbers on like legal paths and then they're like submitting this and they're like, Oh my gosh, how could it have gone wrong? How could it go right? I don't know. There's something appealing about it appearing. It's so on. It feels very democratic. No, it feels very stupid because I don't show us how you really feel. I don't trust people to properly record what's going on.
Speaker 3 49:25 And on top of that, here's what my really big issue with this is, is like the caucuses go late into the night oftentimes, and they're like on a Tuesday if you have, okay, so say you're in Iowa in winter in Iowa. So say you're just like a typical nuclear family of four and mom and dad have to go to work tomorrow morning. Kids have to go to school at seven o'clock and it's Iowa and it's freezing and all that. Well, who goes to the caucus? Mom or dad? Do mom and dad both go and then the babysitter stays with the kids will then the babysitter doesn't get to caucus. We are going to drag your kids out of bed to go sit in the school gymnasium when they got school the next morning. I don't know. It's insane. It's totally insane. Like I think it weeds a lot of people out who could and would want to vote. Nobody shows up to these things. Did you know that only 4% of registered voters showed up in Nevada to vote in? In the caucus.
Speaker 4 50:31 Okay,
Speaker 3 50:32 but she, but you could absentee vote in the caucus. How is that representative of <inaudible>? It's also, how is that a caucus? Like if you're absent talking. Yeah. It's not a caucus primary. Right. It's defeating the purpose. So that's a good feelings about caucuses. I'm sorry, that's a segway right? I mean, it's so primary,
Speaker 0 50:52 it's kind of like a more conventional election, right? Where you've got kind of this ballot of all these people. And unlike the presidential election where you, when you vote in November for president, you are not voting for president.
Speaker 3 51:09 You are voting for electors who will vote for that person, vote for the person that you hope they've go to vote for. But in the primary,
Speaker 0 51:19 you're actually voting for the person you're voting for. Now that's going to determine how many delegates they send to the national convention, but at least it's a little, I dunno, is it a little more transparent?
Speaker 3 51:36 I, I don't think any part of this process is transparent. I think it gives the illusion of choice. And I think in the 21st century it is fodder for 24 hour news networks. Oh, they love, I wanted to see, I think it's the illusion of choice. That's it.
Speaker 0 51:55 Biggest criticisms about kind of the 24 hour news cycle and elections is, you know, news reporting about elections matters. And you know, I live out on the West coast and in 2016, um,
Speaker 0 52:14 people, some people didn't get out and vote when they could have because of the data that was already coming out of the East in primaries are much the same way. I think that if, um, one of the problems is you've got a, the very first state is Iowa that's caucus New Hampshire with its primary Nevada with the cow caucus, South Carolina with a primary, I mean, Nevada and South Carolina are larger States, but they're by no means super large States like California, Texas, these really large States. Um, by the time it gets to places like California and Texas, it almost feels like it's a done deal. Well and I think in most years it is. So, I mean we've talked about you don't like caucuses cause it's 4% of people voting. I mean, if those four States get to decide who the nominee is, that's a pretty small percentage of the country.
Speaker 3 53:24 It's, that's again,
Speaker 0 53:26 like it's crazy undemocratic. It actually ends up being read, write and Harry read. This is one of his rationale. This was his rationale for why Nevada should be put in the early group. Is he argued it was more representative
Speaker 3 53:43 of the nation I think. I think it is now. I mean it's most certainly more representative of the nation than Iowa and New Hampshire. New England. I'm sure. I mean, my goodness.
Speaker 0 53:56 So, so how, how do we fix it? What if people said we should do? Um, and there are a bunch of kind of competing plans. Um, I'm just gonna, I'm going to give you each plan. I'm going to give you a plan and we'll talk about it. Um, so there's the California plan. Uh, it's also called the American plan. And this would be a graduated random primary. So you'd start with a small number of States and it would increase to a bigger and bigger number. Um, what do you think about that?
Speaker 3 54:39 Well, if it's the California anything, the rest of the country is going to say no.
Speaker 0 54:43 Well, that's why it's got the subtitle of the American plan. Right. But that's just, no, it's, it's a Wolf in sheep's clothing, but it's red. It's randomized California to come up with anything. Let's just get it. And it's not based on the size of the state or anything like that. It is strictly random. It's a randomized thing. Um,
Speaker 3 55:03 what about if everybody had the day off and everyone went and voted in a primary on the same day at the same time and no results came in until the following day?
Speaker 0 55:17 So that is an interesting question, but it's also criticism. So if you are a small, if you're a relatively small group but a newcomer in politics, you may not have the financial resources to have a presence in all 50 States simultaneously for a primary kind of without the backing of the national party. You might not be able to do this. And this is a criticism on most of these reform measures, is if there's only a primary in one place at one time, small campaigns can do that. Once you get to multiple campaigns happening across the nation randomly. And this is a criticism for the California plan, right? So even if it's a small number early on, if they're all over the place, if it's like Alaska, Maine, Florida, Hawaii, and those are like the four candidate primaries, like well it's not representative, but I mean if it's randomized, maybe that's what you end up with. How can a small campaign get to all four of those places? Here's the thing.
Speaker 3 56:24 I mean I would argue that in the 21st century it's really easy for campaigns to get into every state with technology. I mean you should. I think that that's going by the wayside. I think that that's thing that baby boomers like to do. I don't want a glad hand. I want to do, I mean the way that I'm being exposed to things now is like through the internet. I mean, so for example, a couple of like a week or so ago, Mike Bloomberg like took over Instagram. So he's hired comedians, like actual people who we would know. We don't know their names right now. That'll be revealed, I'm sure at some point. But like he's hired actual comedians to create content for him. And I mean, the entire platform was like an ad for Mike Bloomberg. I mean, and I don't, I'm not saying anything one way or the other about that, but it was an incredible use of, of resources.
Speaker 3 57:21 I mean, he's not been in any of the things he at that point, he hadn't been in debate yet and it's like he put himself in everybody's pocket and that's obviously he's incredibly wealthy and he's using it. He's exploiting that. Right. But like I think you can be present. I think technology allows for you to be present in, in really big ways in people's lives because people live on their phones now. People aren't going out to rallies in the ways that they might have maybe 20 years ago or something. I, I think things are changing dramatically. I've seen some rallies that have drawn large numbers though, but large numbers compared to what? Yeah, there are a lot of people who show up to like a Bernie Sanders rally, but like a lot of people compared to what, I mean, think of the millions of people in the country and how many people actually show up to vote, but how many people have a cell phone? How many people have Instagram, how many people are being engaged through political ads, through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all that kind of stuff. Like I think that you can way easier engage and be seen in a virtual space now than you can having a rally are moving in that direction.
Speaker 0 58:44 So kind of getting back to kind of these solutions, possible solutions. In 2000, the RNC, uh, puts out this idea of the Delaware plan. It's called the fourfold round plan. Basically, you'd split all 50 States plus the territory's into four groups. Smaller States would be in the first group.
Speaker 5 59:05 Mmm.
Speaker 0 59:07 Bigger States would be in the latter groups. And you kind of break this apart. And again, this, this gets criticized because, well, that's a lot of money. Small campaigns would have to spend early on that they may not have. And it'll put well funded campaigns and an advantage and kind of grassroots campaigns at a disadvantage. Um, then we get to my favorite one. So it's going to be ridiculous. I'm sure. Just, well, I have two favorites. First, there's the rotating regional primary system. So basically you split the country into four regions, West, Midwest, South and North East. Every four years, one of those regions randomly is picked to go first. Oh no.
Speaker 3 59:57 I mean cause here's the thing, the United States is, our politics are split so much along geographic lines that that's just going to be a disaster.
Speaker 0 00:08 But it's, but every region is guaranteed to go first of eventually,
Speaker 3 00:13 eventually. Like when everything's just complete, like in ruins. Like when we're living in a post apocalyptic, a society like it's my turn to go first. Like what's the difference at that point? And then we have
Speaker 0 00:26 interregional primary plan. Um, you'd have six regions. What is it with the regions and you had voting would start in may March and go through June. Um, and there'd be a lottery to determine which region goes first and it'd be a 24 year cycle.
Speaker 3 00:54 That's a no for me dog.
Speaker 0 00:57 I mean, but these are the plans that have been out.
Speaker 3 01:00 This is so dumb. And again, I'm going to say it. Why aren't we turning to technology for answers here?
Speaker 0 01:07 Well, you saw spectacularly the technology failed in Iowa.
Speaker 3 01:11 Well, yeah, I mean we use it in so many ways, right? This is the government. We're in charge of it. It would probably cause some other like, Oh my God.
Speaker 0 01:24 But I mean, here's the thing though. I mean if we're, if we're worried about election tampering now, like yeah, let's move primary voting on to mobile platform.
Speaker 3 01:36 Yeah. But I mean, we trust so many things on mobile platforms like our banking. Um, it's so many things. It's like w those machines that get left out with nobody watching them. I mean, you can tamper with those. There was a lot of coverage about that last time about like, look at this bank of machines. It's just sitting out that somebody could very easily just like go hack into, right? I mean there's a lot of criticism that was launched at just the lack of security, um, around a lot of these polling locations. And so, yes, I do think that it would open us up to more cyber warfare more than what's already going on, but we trust so many things, like very important things to our mobile devices. Like why aren't we trying to turn to that? Cause it would also increase voter turnout, but I'm going to go back to it. They don't want that day, the country. I mean Rome really though. I mean, it's not designed as a democracy. The establishment, you know, on both sides, the Republican, the democratic socialists, they don't want that to happen. <inaudible> so the little art
Speaker 0 02:53 kind of Republican ideal has kind of been preserved?
Speaker 3 02:59 Yeah, I would say so because that's the way the country was designed. Um, and it just, it's not going to go any other way. I mean, they're going to just continue to concoct these things that, again, give the guys of choice. But there's just asinine. I mean every minute when you came up with ridiculous, not you, but that you shared, right?
Speaker 0 03:23 So if we, if we weren't in kind of an a long period of the ascendance of the Imperial presidency, would this matter as much? If the president was kind of what many of the original architects of the constitution intended?
Speaker 3 03:40 <inaudible> would it really matter? No, but it's so dangerous now that it matters so much.
Speaker 0 03:46 Right? We've been on a, you know, we've been on this ever-increasing power of the presidency for decades, right? This is not a recent phenomenon for decades. The end, no president ever voluntarily seeds power that the executive branch has accumulated.
Speaker 3 04:04 <inaudible> I don't care,
Speaker 0 04:07 which, I don't care which party you're in. It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 04:11 Yeah. Then each time more, you know, there's precedents that are set each time and it gets pushed further and further and further and, and so we're just, you know, at this point of the, the executive branch is the most powerful and that's just, that's it.
Speaker 0 04:28 So, wow. Oh, we're in a kind of, in a dark space.
Speaker 3 04:32 Like we always end up in a dark space. But I, I mean, go out and vote. If you have a primary to vote in, go vote in that primary. Does it matter what I want? Like I'm in Mississippi. Like what is the point? What is the point that matters? I don't think matters. Right? I mean, here's the thing that matters. Everyone goes, especially in night in 2020, I think you as a woman should go vote Hillary. Well, I've going to, I'm just saying like I feel
Speaker 0 05:01 a hundred years ago there were women who gave a lot to make sure you have that right.
Speaker 3 05:08 God bless them. Even though Mississippi doesn't formally ratify it until my husband who he's voting for.
Speaker 0 05:18 I'm sorry, what? We're going to be coming after me with pitchforks after this. I'm insane. I'm joking. I am a very sarcastic person. Well, thanks for joining us today is on this confusing. Yes. And the incomplete history remains incomplete. No solution here. There's no rhyme or reason to this either. There really isn't. Um, I, I'd love to get a couple of political scientists to see if they could explain it more coherently than we could. Yes. And if you know, we sounded like asses, please let us know in the comments. Uh, well, uh, thanks for joining us this week on an incomplete history. Uh, make sure to join us next time. I'm Jeff and I'm Hillary. Thanks for tuning in.
