Nominating Candidates

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Nominating Candidates

• Pages 464 - 470

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How Candidates Are Selected

• Caucuses private meetings of party leaders
• Widely criticized as undemocratic
• In modern caucuses, party rules require openness
  with selection process beginning with the local
  level

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• Nominating Conventions an official public
  meeting of a party to choose candidates for
  office
• Local party organizations send reps to a county
  nominating convention that selects candidates for
  county offices and chooses delegates who will go
  to a state nominating convention. The state
  chooses candidates for statewide office and
  choose delegates for the national convention.

4

• Nominating conventions should be more democratic
  than party caucuses, however, bosses chose
  delegates and control conventions

5

• Primary Elections an election in which party
  members select people to run in the general
  election
• Closed Primary only members of a political
  party can vote
• Open Primary all voters may participate but can
  only vote in only one partys primary

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• In most state, a primary candidate does not need
  a majority of votes to win, only a plurality, or
  more votes than any other candidate.
• In some states, if no candidate receives a
  majority, the have a runoff primary

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• Petition a person announces his or her
  candidacy and files petitions that a specified
  number of voters have signed in order to be
  placed on the ballot.
• Party-backed candidates have the advantage
  because party workers will circulate petitions.
  The party might also pledge financial and
  organizational help.

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Presidential Nominations

• Every 4 years
• Delegates from every state and territory
• Ticket candidates for president and
  vice-president
• In the past, congressional caucuses chose
  presidential candidates
• A minor party, the Anti-Masons held the first
  national convention in 1831

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• Today, presidential primaries operate under a
  variety of state laws.
• They may be a delegate selection process or a
  presidential preference poll, or both
• Either the candidate who wins the primary gets
  all the states convention delegates, or each
  candidate gets delegates bases on how many
  popular votes he or she receives in the primary

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• Delegates selected on the basis of the popular
  vote may be required to support a certain
  candidate at the national convention or may be
  uncommitted.
• Presidential primaries were originally
  winner-take-all
• Democrats now use proportional representation
• Republicans allow both

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Criticisms of Presidential Primaries

• Extend over too long a period of time in an
  election year
• Costly
• The process makes the image of the candidate more
  important than the issues
• Candidates who win early primaries capture the
  media spotlight. The other candidates get a
  loser image

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• Some states joined forces for regional primaries
  14 states joined together in 1988 to create
  Super Tuesday
• One-sided convention victories

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The National Convention

• Preconvention Planning city, date, votes per
  state
• Assembling the Convention

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The Rules Committee

• Governs the way the convention is supposed to be
  run
• Committee report usually accepted but sometimes
  battles develop over the report

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The Credentials Committee

• Must approve the delegations from each state
• Sometimes disputes rival delegations might show
  up claiming to be the states official delegates

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The Platform Committee

• Platform a statement of a partys principles,
  beliefs, and positions on vital issues. It also
  spells out how the party intends to deal with
  these issues.
• They try to adopt a platform that appeals to all
  factions, or divisions, at the convention
• Planks the individual parts of the platform
• Platform fights can divide a party

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Nominating the Candidates

• The highlight of the convention
• An alphabetical roll call by states
• The candidate who receives the majority of votes
  becomes the partys nominee.
• If none is selected, further roll calls are taken

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Vice Presidential Nomination

• Normally takes place on the last day of the
  convention
• Usually the presidential nominee chooses the
  vice-presidential candidate
• Normally chosen to balance the ticket

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Adjournment

• Acceptance speeches to bring the party together,
  attack the opposition, sound a theme for the
  upcoming campaign, and to appeal to the national
  audience.
• The convention then adjourns.