[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES

                                 ______


                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 13, 1996

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert my Washington 
Report for Wednesday, March 13, 1996, into the Congressional Record.

                     Reforming The Primary Process

       One of my interests is to make government work better. I 
     have tried to contribute to that goal in a number of areas, 
     including the reform of Congress and the Federal Reserve, 
     among others. Lately, my attention has been drawn to the way 
     we select presidents.


                         How the process works

       Presidential nominees are chosen at their respective 
     party's national conventions by delegates who were elected, 
     either directly or indirectly, in the primaries, caucuses, or 
     conventions of each state. The delegate selection process is 
     governed by a combination of state laws and national and 
     state party rules. In general, delegates are committed to 
     certain candidates before they get to the party convention. 
     The primaries now produce the nominee and the convention 
     merely crowns him.
       Most states, including Indiana, use the primary system to 
     vote for presidential candidates. Under the primary system, 
     an individual will vote, by secret ballot, for a candidate, 
     who will be represented at the national convention by a 
     certain number of delegates. In some states, the winner of 
     the primary will take all the delegates available in that 
     primary; in other states, including Indiana, delegates are 
     awarded based on the candidates' proportion of the vote. The 
     primary season begins in New Hampshire in late February, and 
     most of the major primaries are held in March.


                    Problems with the current system

       The primary system, while more open and democratic than the 
     old convention system, has its drawbacks. The early primary 
     states have an extraordinary influence on the outcome and 
     that's one reason states are scrambling to vote earlier each 
     year. It is far from clear that voters in the early primaries 
     are representative of a national party, much less a national 
     electorate. The present system in a sense violates the one-
     man one-vote principle. If you vote in the New Hampshire 
     primary, your vote is probably worth 10 or 15 times as much 
     in determining the outcome than the people who vote in 
     Indiana. That bothers me. The low turnout in primaries is 
     also worrisome. The average for all primaries is only about 
     30% of registered voters.
       The front loading of the calendar is the most important 
     single change to the American primary system in recent years. 
     Campaigning starts earlier than ever before, costing millions 
     of dollars. The schedule is so compressed that by the first 
     of April almost all the delegates will have been selected. 
     The vital primaries come thick and fast. It is very difficult 
     to pause or regroup between them. If you do badly in one 
     primary, you don't have much time to recover. Voters may not 
     have enough time to consider which candidate is best for the 
     party or the nation.
       Candidates essentially nominate themselves for our 
     consideration and they have to be a bit obsessed to go 
     through the present primary selection system. My impression 
     is that the media performs the screening role formerly done 
     by party leaders and professionals. The media can be an 
     important conduit of information about candidates, but they 
     also tend to be more interested in the horse race aspects of 
     a primary rather than fundamental questions, such as whether 
     a candidate can govern or what is the candidate's vision.


                            Reform proposals

       There have been several proposals for reforming the current 
     system. One proposal would involve selecting convention 
     delegates on the first Tuesdays of March, April, May and June 
     of each election year. Any state could choose any of those 
     four dates, but the probable result would be a mixture of 
     states from various regions on each of the four dates. The 
     gap between the primary dates would allow voters and the 
     media to examine the candidates with care, and the candidates 
     would get a chance to catch their breath and have time for 
     more thoughtful speeches.
       Another suggestion is a national primary in which 
     registered voters of all parties could vote on a single day. 
     Such a primary would require an orgy of nationwide television 
     advertising by all the candidates that would last for months 
     and put more power in the hands of the party bosses, less in 
     the hands of the people.
       Still others want to reserve a third of the national 
     convention seats for party professionals in order to postpone 
     until the last moment the decision on who will get the 
     presidential nomination. This approach would enhance the role 
     for professional politicians in judging who has the right 
     stuff to be president. I would not support such a proposal 
     because it is inherently less democratic than the current 
     primary system.


                               Conclusion

       No single decision is more important to the United States 
     than choosing a president. Primaries tell us whether or not a 
     candidate can discern the issues that are on the minds of the 
     American people and can frame a message and present it 
     effectively to a variety of constituencies around the 
     country. They also tell us whether he has the physical and 
     emotional capabilities to sustain a campaign under high 
     stress and assemble an effective political team and raise the 
     money to support it.
       The great advantage of the primary is that it allows 
     ordinary Americans to pick their candidates for president. In 
     the end the system has worked reasonably well. Nominees are 
     usually picked who are widely known and widely approved. 
     Money matters, but it's not everything.
       I am inclined to think it is the kind of system that we can 
     approve but we should not discard. I do have the uneasy 
     feeling that we've separated the presidential nominating 
     process from the governing process. A person can be very good 
     at getting nominated. He may not necessarily be a very good 
     president. I'm not sure primaries give us a candidate's core 
     of political values or tell us if he has a firm sense of the 
     direction in which he wants to lead the nation or whether he 
     is secure with himself and with his own convictions and 
     conscience.
       Among our goals in reforming the primary system would be to 
     assure wider participation in the selection process and cut 
     the cost of a primary campaign. I am attracted to the idea of 
     interregional primaries. We could set six dates between March 
     and June for a series of interregional primaries. On each 
     date a group of states of various sizes from different 
     regions of the country would hold primary contests. The order 
     could rotate.
       Some say primaries are not efficient. They probably are not 
     as efficient as the smoke filled convention. But they are 
     less corruptible and the result is accepted. That's important 
     in a democracy. It is the very democratic quality of the 
     primary that makes it a little messy and a struggle.

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