Politics and elections 77didates more open and democratic, but the belief in the democratic character
of the convention system proved illusory. Party leaders could manage conven-
tions so that they became a mere facade for oligarchic control by professional
politicians. As part of the revulsion against ‘bossism’ and all that it entailed,
primary elections were introduced in order to break up the oligarchies of city
and county machines. Caucus meetings are still held in a number of states
- fifteen in 2004 – to select delegates to the national conventions.
Primary elections give party members a direct voice in the choice of party
representatives through the medium of a public, state-controlled election,
in which any member of the party can stand as a candidate and all members
can vote. Primaries are intended to bring the instruments of mass democ-
racy, the political parties, under democratic control. The primary elections
used in the United States are in principle extremely democratic, for the
definition of ‘party member’ that qualifies the elector to vote in a primary
is extremely widely drawn. Party membership does not entail fee-paying or
card-holding membership in an organisation. It usually means nothing more
than the declaration by the ordinary member of the electorate, when he or
she registers as a voter, of having voted for a particular party in the past, or
intending to do so in the future, without of course in any way committing
him or her to the support of a particular party at the forthcoming election.
Thus a registered Democrat may vote in the Democratic primary to choose
the candidates for that party in the general election, but when election day
comes he or she is quite free to vote for the Republican candidate. In a few
states democratic principles are taken to the ultimate extreme, for in the
so-called ‘open primaries’ voters are allowed to vote in whichever primary
they choose, without being restricted by their party choice at the time of
registration. Such a system is totally disruptive of party organisation, and for
a time both parties abandoned the open primary, but a number of states have
now returned to it.
In 2004 presidential primaries were held in thirty-five states. In most of
these elections delegates are chosen for the national conventions, commit-
ted to the support of particular candidates, at least on the first ballot in the
convention. In some cases the primary vote merely expresses the preference
of the voters for a particular prospective nominee for the presidency, without
binding the delegates, who will nevertheless feel inclined to support the win-
ner of the primary in their state, particularly if that candidate looks likely to
win the nomination. The fact that the primary season stretches over months,
moving from state to state, tends to make the earlier ones more significant,
because they may start a trend in favour of one of the candidates. This has in
the past caused a certain amount of manoeuvring by states wishing to have
an influence in the early stages of the primary battles. In 1988 a number of
Southern and Western states decided to hold their primaries on the same
day, and in 1996 seven states held their primaries on ‘Super Tuesday’, 5
March. The result was to boost the candidacy of Bob Dole in the Republican
primaries, turning them into a kind of Southern declaration in his favour.