AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE AEIFORUMS Choosing Presidential Candidates How Good ls the New Way?

John Charles Daly, moderator Ken Bode · David S. Broder Austin Ranney Richard M. Scammon The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, established in 1943, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization supported by foundations, corporations, and the public at large. Its purpose is to assist policy makers. scholars, business men and women, the press, and the public by providing objective analysis of national and international issues. Views expressed in the institute's publications are those of the authors and do not necessarily renect the views of the staff. advisorypa nels, officers. or trustees of AEI.

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John Charles Daly, moderator

Ken Bode David S. Broder Austin Ranney Richard M. Scammon

Held on October 18, 1979 and sponsored by the American EnterpriseInstitute for Public Policy Research Washington, D. C. Publication of this pamphlet is an activity of AEI' s project "A Decade of Study of the Constitution," funded in part by a Bicentennial Chal­ lenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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ISBN 0-8447-2172-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 80-80002 Printed in United States of America JOHN CHARLES DALY, forme, ABC News chief and forum mod­ erator: This public policy forum, part of a series presented by the American Enterprise Institute, is concerned with the process by which we nominate presidential candidates and with the impact of this process on the office of the presidency, the general political system, and, ultimately, on the Constitution of the United States. Before reform and the new way of presidential nominations-­ which may roughly be dated from the McGovern Commission re­ forms adopted within the Democratic party in 1969-the old way involved a mixture of state party caucuses and state primaries. The major role and power, however, was vested in state party leaders and elected officials in the national nominating conventions. They could ignore primary results. In 1952, for example, Estes Kefauver swept all the primaries except one, but the leadership of the Dem­ ocratic convention preferred Adlai Stevenson; Stevenson won the nomination. It was also possible to confound the convention leadership. Astute pressure on delegates and wildly enthusiastic, packed galleries stampeded the 1940 Republican convention to produce a surprise candidate, Wendell Willkie. The new way, on the other hand, championing open access to the presidential nominating process by all interested party members, mandated involvement of women, young people, and minority groups, allocated convention delegates among presidential candi­ dates according to proportional representation-no more winner­ take-all-and ruled out the old practice of reserved delegate seats for party leaders. The reformers believed that these changes would as­ sure that the delegates at the national party convention would fairly reflect voters' preferences. The new process of nominating presidential candidates has pro­ duced significant changes, such as a startling rise in state primaries. In 1968, roughly 40 percent of the delegates to the national conven­ tions were chosen in seventeen primaries. In 1976, 75 percent of the

1 delegates were chosen in thirty state primaries. In 1980, 80 percent of the delegates will be chosen in thirty-five state primaries. The new way, however, has not quieted the call for reform. There are those who urge selection of national convention delegates by regional primaries. Others urge a direct national primary, replacing conventions altogether. That is the granddaddy of all reform pro­ posals, first introduced in the Congress in 1911. Of the 250 bills introduced since 1911 dealing with reform of presidential nomina­ tions, about half have proposed some version of the direct national primary. The subject of this forum, therefore, is, "Choosing Presidential Candidates: How Good Is the New Way?" Mr. Bode, as research director of the original McGovern Commis­ sion in 1969, are you satisfied with the results?

KEN BODE, political correspondent, NBC News: By and large, I am, yes. I think that the reforms were essentially a moderate and careful response to a series of abuses that were uncovered in 1968, things that had been going on for a long time. I think, basically, that the reforms have gotten a bad rap. There has been a certain amount of historical revisionism about what the reforms have produced, some of which Mr. Daly just stated, to wit: that they created a large number of primaries. The reforms were carefully and thoughtfully written by party lead­ ers, and they headed off more radical responses, such as direct elec­ tion of the president, eradication of the electoral college, and the national primary legislation that has been in Congress since 1968. The reforms have survived two serious reexaminations by reform commissions of the Democratic party, the Mikulski Commission after the 1972 election, and the Winograd Commission after the 1976 elec­ tion. Neither was disposed to take the reforms as gospel when it met, so I think that the survival of the reforms indicates that they are with us to stay.

MR. DALY: Mr. Broder, in your book The Party's Over, you argue that the traditional party role in the United States is diminishing because of the new nominating process. Would you explain briefly how and why?

DAVID S. BRODER, political correspondent, Washington Post: In the old way, whoever wanted to run for president of the United States

2 took a couple months off from public office in the year of the presi­ dential election and presented his credentials to the leaders of his party, who were elected officials, party officials, leaders of allied interest groups, and bosses in some cases. These people had known the candidate over a period of time and had carefully examined his work. In the new way, the first thing a candidate does is get out of public officeso he has nothing to do for two, three, four, or, in some cases, six years, except run for president of the United States. The candidate takes his case not to the professionals who know him or to his political peers, but to the amat�urs who meet him only briefly in their living room or in the town hall and have very little basis on which to make that screening. I think the new way has diminished the kind of careful screening that the office of the presidency requires.

MR. DALY: Mr. Scammon, as director of the Elections Research Center, are the substantial reforms of the new way enough reform, or would you consider regional or direct national primaries?

RICHARD M. SCAMMON, director, Elections Research Center: I don't think it makes much difference as long as a large percentage of the electorate, whether it is the total electorate or not, can vote at least a preference for president, even if they don't elect delegates, and this fact is available to the leadership so they know what they are doing. The case in 1952 Mr. Daly cited was well taken. Kefauver was liquidated by the leadership, by the bosses, and replaced by a man who had never run in any of the primaries, not that either could have done well against General Eisenhower. The basic need is for a continuing participation of the mass, at least in expressing an opinion, as between the 2 or 3 percent who partic­ ipate in the caucus and the 20 or 30 percent who participate in the primary. It may be that I am a primitive democrat, but it seems to me that the great leavening in U.S. politics is that Americans participate en masse in choosing their nominees rather than voting on nominees chosen by the party leadership.

MR. DALY: Dr. Ranney, has the new way given all party members full participationin the process of candidate selection and the promise of the best candidate possible?

AUSTIN RANNEY, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute: If by

3 "party members" you mean those people who are legally eligible to mark the ballot of a particular party in a primary, there is no question; yes, they all have a full and complete chance to participate. As to the quality of the candidates, let's look at the facts. Since the reforms first went into effect, we have had four presidential candi­ dates. One was the first president in history to be forced to resign fromoffice. Another received the lowest vote _a presidential candidate has ever gotten for a major party. The third was the first president since Herbert Hoover to be denied reelection. And the fourth now has the lowest showing in the polls of any incumbent president since polls have been taken. [Laughter.] Those are the facts. I suggest you draw your own conclusions. MR. BODE: Dr. Ranney, wasn't Richard Nixon first nominated by the Republicans in 1960? DR. RANNEY: He was the first gentleman to whom I referred. MR. BODE: I mean that the reforms do not have to bear the burden of Richard Nixon. If I had to choose between Carter, who is a weak president, and Nixon, who was a venal president, I would take Carter.

DR. RANNEY: We will see whether the American people agree with you on that.

MR. SCAMMON: One must also remember in our exercise in nostalgia that the old system gave us that paragon of virtue Warren G. Harding, our great, well-known president of the 1920s. I doubt very much whether systems alone will provide good or bad presidents. Other factors, such as social and economic conditions and the entire nature of the government, have a good deal more to do with the quality of the candidate than will either nominating process, old or new. Either can produce good; either can produce bad.

MR. BRODER: The only dissent I would offer on Dick Scammon' s point is that the system we are operating now does in fact eliminate people who are not prepared to take a substantial period out of their public life, sacrifice a good deal of their private life, and spend two, three, or four years going from town to town, introducing themselves to strangers. The system eliminates candidates who will not attempt to break through that barrier of public disinterest to strike an ephemeral spark in the minds of voters that may cause that tiny minority who really deliver the nomination to do something unnatural-that is, to

4 leave home on a cold January night in Iowa, or a cold February day in New Hampshire, in order to help somebody become president the follo�ing November. MR. BODE: Aren't we generalizing a bit too strongly from a small number of cases, namely, Jimmy Carter? He is the one who firsttook time off from his business to campaign for a couple of years. If Ted Kennedy and Howard Baker are the nominees of the two parties in this coming election-both reasonable possibilities-then the matter of a candidate's not being willingto take two or three years out of public life simply won't obtain. DR. RANNEY: I would like to make a general point. Ken Bode and I, who do not share some things, do share the fact that we were both heavily involved-I as a member, he as research director-with the original McGovern Commission. Whatever blame attaches to that commission's effects, we have our share of, and whatever praise is due to it, we also have a share of. I have observed a general phenomenon in the comments we have made here, in other conversations and panels, and in books and articles, that people appraise these reforms in different ways. I see two quite different ways of looking at things, and I think I have seen it here. I describe one group as the virtue-is-its-own-reward school, the notion that the reforms are to be appraised according to their intrinsic fairness. This school sees the reforms as more demo­ cratic, more open. More people participate. They are simply better and fairer than the old process. Another well-known aphorism describes the other school: "By their fruitsye shall know them." This school asks what impact the reforms have on the political parties, what kind of candidates they charac­ teristically produce, and how they affect the quality of the popular attitude toward the nature of our political system and toward our system of presidential selection. Mr. Broder and I clearly believe that by their fruits ye shall know them. I rather suspect that Ken Bode is from the virtue-is-its-own­ reward school. I hope there will be at least some meeting of the minds of these two schools during this forum. MR. DALY: Mr. Bode, what are the most important changes that have resulted from the reforms of the past decade? MR. BODE: The guiding principle of the reformers was that for the last century in this cquntry there have been only two parties that have had the capacity to elect the president, the Republicans and the Dem-

5 ocrats. Under such circumstances, it is important for the rank and file to have a valid opportunity to test the stewardship and leadership even of an incumbent president in the nominating process. The rank and file wanted such a test in 1968. The issue was Viet­ nam. But that issue was never brought to an electoral test by the parties. The reformers were trying to eliminate the procedural abuses and, in some cases, phony participation that prevented the rank and file Democrats in the party fromregistering an opinion, a valid choice through the primaries. I think the reforms have gotten a bum rap. They have been accused of creating too many primaries and of eradicating the leadership at conventions. That is not what they were intended to do, and not, I think, what they did.

MR. DALY: Mr. Broder, what do you see as the principal wrongs of the reforms since 19697 MR. BRODER: I think the basic intellectual error made by the reform­ ers-and we are talking here basically about the Democrats-was their complaint that the 1968 Democratic convention did not represent the real will of the party. I acknowledge that I did not understand this until some of the consequences began to roll in. When they began to rewrite the procedures, they made the sig­ nificant transference from wanting to improve the system of repre­ sentation to wishing to open the opportunities for participation. Representation is a complex and subtle political process. We can be represented in many ways. There is only one way to participate, and that is to be there. By making that fundamental intellectual error, I think the com­ mission set the stage for creating what is, in effect, a highly elitist presidential selection system, in which those who have the knowl­ edge, the leisure, and the financial resources to be present themselves have a disproportionate and inordinate impact on the selection proc­ ess, particularly in the Democratic party. Again, I think the repre­ sentative nature of the Democratic convention, in fact, has declined since the period of the reforms. MR. DALY: Mr. Scammon, do you feel that all of the reforms growing out of the efforts begun by the McGovern Commission are good, or would you change any of the current practices? MR. SCAMMON: Let me comment on one question that leads up to your question. I would not say that the present movement for more primaries, which we still see going on, came out of the two 1969

6 commissions. It came out of John Kennedy in 1960, who proved that a Roman Catholic could be elected president of the United States. The only way he could prove it was to go into West Virginia and other states where there was a problem and prove to the local party leadership-whose enlightened appreciation of the public will might not have produced this view otherwise-that he could whip Hubert Humphrey. Kennedy thereby opened up not so much the detailed reforms Mr. Daly and Mr. Bode spoke of as the idea that people wanted greater participation in the nominating process. If that idea worked in 1960, it was believed it could also work in 1964 and in 1968. Although the present system produces a Barry Goldwater at one time and a McGovern at another-both less than ideal candidates as far as the voters in November were concerned-that isn't the point. The point is that, from the viewpoint of a primitive democrat, 30 percent voting in a nominating primary is better than 3 percent and represents a greater exercise of popular will. As a matter of fact, in the 1976 primary, of the total presidential vote cast in the states that had primaries, half of the votes went into the primary. Forget whether the reforms are good or bad; if they produce an exercise of popular will greater than we see anywhere else in the world, then I am impressed.

MR. BRODER: Dick Scammon's example is the critical one. It is a fact, as he says, that John Kennedy would not have been nominated if there had not been a West Virginia primary, in which he demon­ strated that Protestants would vote for a Catholic. But Kennedy ran in four contested primaries in 1960. Contrast four with the thirty-five that await anyone who wants the nomination in 1980. After Kennedy won in West Virginia, he still had to persuade the leaders of his party-the governors, the mayors, the leaders of allied interest groups, particularly organized labor-that they could stake their reputation on his qualities as the best man to be the stand­ ard bearer for the party. Contrast that with Jimmy Carter, who never had to meet, and in fact, in many cases, did not meet, those similar officials until after he had achieved the Democratic nomination. The significance of the difference for the presidency is that in one case, a man, if he is elected, comes with the alliances that make it possible for him to organize the coalitions and support necessary to lead a government. In the present nominating system, he comes as a fellow whose only coalition is whatever he got out of the living rooms in Iowa. If there is one thing that Jimmy Carter's frustration in office ought to teach us, it is that the affiliationand the commitment that is made on Iowa 7 caucus night and New Hampshire primary day is not by itself suf­ ficient to sustain a man for four years in the White House. DR. RANNEY: Several people here have suggested that we are not through the reform cycle yet. Mr. Daly alluded to this in his opening remarks. I would like to hear Dick Scammon and some others com­ ment on the next big proposal for reform, the proposal to go all the way to a one-day direct national primary. What I don't understand is, if it is good to have 30 percent of 75 percent of the population voting, wouldn't it be even better to have 25 percent of the entire population voting? Logically, doesn't your position lead you to support a one-day national primary, a complete abolition of the natj.onal convention? MR. SCAMMON: It would if the states had no role to play in the pri­ maries and there were a law that forced people to vote in a national primary. The next step, I suppose, is compulsory voting. I would like to see all the states adopt their own primaries, but this is up to them. I would rather maintain the state's power to decide whether to have primaries than to see a national primary law. DR. RANNEY: Is preservation of the state's right to choose more im­ portant to you than popular participation in the nominating process? MR. SCAMMON: Since the states have already opted to hold primaries, the point is largely moot. In other words, we have not had to choose between popular participation and preserving the state's right, but I can think of some cases when the state's right is not more important than popular participation. For example, if a state's right to regulate the right to vote is thought to include the right to bar blacks from the Democratic primary, then I would think that issue is too important to be left to the state. The two committees left many of the details of implementation, however, to the individual states in the form of general guidelines. So little is left to the states these days, I would like to preserve their rights as much as possible. MR. BODE: I think we overestimate the influence the addition of a few presidential primaries has had on our parties in this country. We are in a period of great sweeping reform, which probably began with the reapportionment decisions in the early 1960s, the voting rights act, the eighteen-year-old vote, and public financing of elec­ tions. These things, combined with the growth in the influence of television on our politics, the movement of candidates away from

8 political parties as an organizing mechanism for garnering support, and the movement of parties away from party organizations to tum out the vote have all had important effects on our parties. If we want to say that primaries are party-weakening devices-­ which I-think is what we are saying here and is a fairlystrong opinion among political scientists these days-then we have to look to the base of the parties where thousands of primaries have been held at the state and local levels since the Progressives came in around 1910 to 1912. That is where the parties need to be revitalized. If we perceive primaries as weakening devices, then perhaps we should consider getting rid of the primaries at the local level.

MR. DALY: What have the reforms done to the viability of state parties and state leadership, which, under the old way, was quite strong?

MR. BODE: I think, once again, the impact of the reforms has been vastly overstated. The national Democratic and Republican conven­ tions meet for four days once every four years. What the reforms have done is said simply that delegate status to a nominating con­ vention can no longer be considered a legitimate patronage function of the party; that the people, the rank-and-file party voters, have to have some say. Delegate slots cannot simply be passed out to the party jobbers and envelope lickers and fat cats. I think the weakening of the parties is a result of other factors.

DR. RANNEY: We may have here a good example of the contrast be­ tween "virtue is its own reward" and ''by their fruits ye shall know them." [Laughter.] I understand from Ken Bode that the system is more open, more fair, and more democratic now. All the old evils have been done away with. Dave Broder and his brethren in the print press and Ken Bode, Dick Scammon, and their colleagues in the electronic press have ev­ idently not gotten the message to the American people. Let me read a few figures. The last unreformed, evil, old-fashioned election was in 1968, with 61 percent voter turnout. Voter turnout in 1972 was 55 percent; in 1976, 54 percent. A study of contested pres­ idential primaries that I personally have perpetrated shows that be­ tween 1946 and 1968, the average turnout in primaries for both parties was 39 percent. In 1972 and 1976, it was 28 percent. In various Gallup and Harris polls taken in 1968, people were asked whether they thought it made a great deal of difference who won the election. Prior to 1968, about 65 percent said it made a difference. Now, 33 percent say it does. People were also asked whether they

9 agreed with the statement that ordinary people do not have any say in what goes on in our government. In the old, unreformed days, only 40 percent agreed with that. Now, 75 percent agree. We see, therefore, what cleaning up and reforming the system have done for popular confidencein the process. With a few more reforms, I would say that a real cataclysm could occur. I know you think the reforms were not responsible for any of this, Mr. Bode, but they have not been responsible for any good things that I can see either. [Laugh­ ter.] MR. SCAMMON: Let me emphasize a valid point Ken Bode made: 99 percent of nominations for political offices, generally, in the United States are made by primary elections. This has been true, in most instances, since before World War I. Maybe the whole concept of the primary is debilitating. After all, the electionin 1896 had the highest voter participation since the end of the CivilWar. Following Dr. Ranney's line of reasoning, we should repeal all of the changes that have liberalized voter registration since 1960 because they haven't increased voter turnout. DR. RANNEY: No, we shouldn't repeal all of them, but they ought not be praised for having greatly improved the system either. MR. SCAMMON: No, no, no, no, no. Voter turnout is not the only criterion by which the system is judged. The system is also judged by access----the access the average citizen has to it. A citizen may decide, perhaps in wisdom, that there are more interesting things in the world than voting: gardening, sex, bowling [laughter]- DR. RANNEY: I can see the case for bowling, but [laughter]- MR. SCAMMON: People may decide that participation is not really the end all and be all. Journalists will findthis difficult to accept because it reflects negatively on their business; the same is true for academics and intellectuals. Someone said to me that in the city of Boston, the schools are run by Judge Garrity, so why vote for the Boston school committee? In other words, when power is taken away from people, they react. The present system of presidential primaries----and I am not speaking of the extra reforms about equal representation-is tre­ mendously important because it gives people their ten or fifteensec­ onds in the polling place, their chance to say something. It is important for the nominating procedures in virtually every state in the union. I would see this primary system at least maintained and possibly expanded, and access is the reason.

10 MR. BRODER: Mr. Scammon, your argument was wonderful, right up to the conclusion, but then you slid off from where I thought logic would take you. If it is true, as I think it clearly is, that politics is a relatively low-ranking interest among most sane people on a year-in, year-out basis [laughter], then why not premise your presidential selection system on that fact and focus the public interest at the moment in the cycle when they are naturally interested, namely, when the field has been narrowed to two candidates. At that time there are a couple of months to examine those candidates under tests of debates and endurance, and let the people make their judgment. I think, through our history, we have the basis for saying with great confidence that the wisdom is in the people under those cir­ cumstances. But what we have done now in this new selection system dominated by the presidential primary is to ask the people to be involved over a much longer period of time, and not just the people, but the candidates, as well. I want to mention two other consequences of this new system that, I think, have to be weighed in the balance. The first is the character of the people who run for that office. They are so ready to yield to their ambition above all other things that they are prepared to make a long-term sacrifice of time and effort. Second, to sustain themselves in that long effort, they have to find help from other people who are prepared to make a similar sacrifice in their own lives. Characteristically, these are young people who are ready to take the gamble because they have few other alternatives as appealing as the chance to leap ahead and find themselves in the White House. The predictable consequence of this kind of nominating system is that we find in the White House, close to the president, making key decisions about government, young people whose essential skills are in the tactics and logistics of a long presidential campaign. They are finepeople, but they know very little about government. [Applause.] The second consequence of this system is symbolized I think by Ken Bode's and my presence here. This protracted system-during most of which most voters are bored to tears-gives an unhealthy and unnatural significance to the role of the mass media. The media do not have the capacity to screen candidates for the presidency; we in the press should not be exercising that power to the extent we are. A prime example of that is the so-called caucuses in the state of Florida-not the state primary, but the caucuses held in October 1979. There was so little inherent significance in the process that only through the interpretation of the press did anybody know who had won or lost, and that is not a role the press should be playing if it is to play a healthy role in this society. [Applause.]

11 MR. DALY: You make the point that the pressures are so hard and so heavy on the media, both print and electronic. To what degree do you think, therefore, the process of election can depend on an ability to manipulate the media under these pressure conditions? MR. BODE: I have never seen a candidate yet who had the capacity to manipulate the media over a long period of time. The media are too diverse a group of people who pay too much attention to presi­ dential elections over too long a period of time to be manipulated. MR. BRODER: I wish I shared that view, but we journalists have written more nonsense-I have been manipulated. There is no way to avoid that fact, and while I do not think that, in personal terms, it has been terribly harmful, I quake at the thought that some readers may have been influenced by me while I was in the process of being manipu­ lated by this kind of game. MR. SCAMMON: I think we miss something here when we assume, in a retreat to nostalgia, that the abolition of the error of the primary­ as it's seen by my colleague Mr. Broder-would result in some kind of fresh, reformed political life. I suggest that the caucuses held in 1979 prior to the primaries in Florida were exactly what one would expect. A system of caucus and convention rather than primary would lead to as great an expenditure of money and commitment of candidates in subsequent presidential elections as the primary system now does. Candidates would have to campaign and maneuver the way James Farley did in 1932 when he was putting up Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and this activity would go on without the saving grace of public opinion. MR. BODE: The assumption is interesting that only recently did people begin to run for president two or three years before the actual nom­ inating process began. Dick Scammon points out Farley in 1932 and the man he was maneuvering for. I broke into politics in Washington at the side of John Bailey-the national Democratic chairman under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, 1960 to 1968, from the state of Connecticut-whose valise I carried around in 1964. Bailey told me not to feel bad about that sort of thing, because in 1958 and 1959 he carried John Kennedy's suitcases all over the country. They were not visiting voters, they were visiting party leaders, but the campaign was just as long, and Kennedy's absentee record in the Senate is testimony to how much time he was on the road. DR. RANNEY: As I understand at least two of my colleagues here, either everything is fine now, and to the extent it isn't fine, the reforms certainly are not responsible; or things are only pretty good 12 now, but if we tried to go back to the good old days, they would be just as bad or worse. I don't know how Dave Broder feels, but I am an optimist about these things. An optimist is one who believes the future is uncertain. [Laughter.] I wonder if we haven't skated a bit too rapidly over the role of the media. Dave Broder, our most distinguished political jour­ nalist, suggested that he has been manipulated and has been wrong, and that maybe somewhere there is a kind of super-Broder who would not make any mistakes and would tell it like it is. On the other hand, I think that there is good reason to believe that a certain amount of manipulation is inherent in the very nature of the system itself. Television journalism is far more important in the total life of the nation than print journalism will ever be again. To understand what the television journalists are doing we should not simply conclude that they favor liberals or conservatives, or that they are for the Democrats or for the Republicans, or that they support Kennedy or Carter or Reagan. I don't think any of those things is true. We should realize, rather, that the maximum objective and dream of television journalists is to get everyone watching their cov­ erage of the convention or their nightly news, and no one watching any of the other networks. They are in a highly competitive business. If we think about it a bit, political reporting in this country, particularly the electronic ver­ sion, is a form of sports reporting. The viewer is told who is ahead, who is behind, and some quaint things about the boys on the team in their off hours. The purpose of political reporting is to be able to second-guess who will be ahead and who will do well. This was true of the 1979 Florida contest. It wasn't a caucus, it wasn't a convention, and it certainly wasn't very entertaining. Jour­ nalists told us at some length that the event did not mean anything but then repeated in detail what happened. [Laughter.] The reason is that it was a horse race, a contest with a winner and a loser. If it were not obvious who the winner and the loser were, I think the networks would have found a winner anyway. MR. DALY: Mr. Broder, in your writing you have called the media "talent scouts" and "handicappers" in the sense that by supplying publicity, they help in the accumulation of matching grants and, subsequently, mailing costs and other costs of a campaign. There is an intertwining action here. MR. BRODER: There certainly is, and it gets to be a kind of manipulative game in which a favorable story can be translatable in real political terms to a hundred thousand dollars in contributions. Once again, this seems to me to be an example of the unhealthy projection of the

13 mass media into a determinative role in the outcome of this selection process. Mr. Daly, if I may-I think there is an obligation on the part of those of us who have been so critical of the changes to suggest what might be done in the practical world and not in an ideal world to restore what I would regard as some balance to this selection system. I think the panel has agreed that we want a mixed system, that there is some advantage in having primaries, and that there is prob­ ably some advantage in having an option for states to pick candidates in other ways. I certainly feel that some due process reforms were achieved after 1968-local parties were required to publish their rules, to identify clearlytheir meeting places, and to open their doors to all of the eligible people who want to participate. All of those changes, it seems to me, are fundamentals that one has a right to expect of a political party. But the mixture is the critical thing. The missing ele­ ment in this system as it is operating today is peer review-intelligent, detached judgment by people who know these candidates well. To achieve that, two things must be done to the existing system. First, the parties have to use their own authority to reduce the number of primaries that are held in this country. Second, they have to find ways to build in a significant presence at the nominating convention for those who, by virtue of their own past experience in the parties and in public office, have more than average knowledge of these candidates. The parties should not be embarrassed that the convention is weighted to give a special role to those who can legit­ imately claim special knowledge in the nominating process.

MR. BODE: Mr. Broder, the parties have already begun to add in some party leaders over and above the state allocation of delegates for 1980. I don't know how to persuade states not to hold primaries, but I think the number of primarieswill be reduced of their own natural course. After the tumultuous convention and the third party split in 1912, the number of primaries increased from nine to about twenty-six, but decreased after 1916. This is a period of growth in the number of primaries, but some states are reconsidering. New Mexico decided to have a primary to get a little bit of attention. George McGovern and George Wallace won all the delegates, but the party leaders were backing Hubert Humphrey, so they abolished the primary the next time around.

DR. RANNEY: And they've restored it.

MR. BODE: They have, but I don't understand why.

14 In 1972Texas created a primary explicitly for Lloyd Bentsen to run for president. The primary law even had a self-destruct clause in it so a primary would occur in one year only. The same situation exists now in Kansas, where a Dole primary is scheduled. A lot of frivolity goes on with state primaries now, but I think stability will eventually return. Anything the parties can do to make the primaries responsive instruments to public will is fine, and I think the primaries are better as a result of the reforms. Given a little time, maybe this whole impulse to abolish the electoral college, and to establish a national primary, a national initiative, and so forth, will wane somewhat, and the pendulum will swing back to a mixed system. It has in the past.

MR. DALY: We have opened the subject very broadly, so we will move now to the question and answer session.

MR. DALY: May I have the first question, please? RALPH REGULA, United States representative (Republican, Ohio): I'd like to direct my question to David Broder. Doesn't the present system tend to create a lame duck presidency much earlier in the term than under the old system and, in effect, substantially diminish the clout of the president and thereby have a deleterious effect on the overall governing of our nation?

MR. BRODER: I think the history of the last two presidencies indicates that. The fact that both Mr. Ford and Mr. Carter were challenged relatively early in their term by people in their own party, who were prepared to spend a good deal of time campaigning against those two presidents, forced them to deflect their energies and attention from their jobs at an earlier stage of the term than would normally have been the case. I think you are absolutely right about that.

MR. BODE: I don't think there is any real evidence for that. I think Gerald Ford is evidence for the contrary. He was an appointed pres­ ident who bore the heavy burden of Watergate; he represented the minority party in the general election and never had run for an office outside Grand Rapids. He was challenged early by a man who os-

15 tensibly had a solid grass-roots base in his own party, but Ford held him off and nearly won the presidential election against Jimmy Carter, against the majority party. I don't think that the one example we have since the implementation of reforms gives any evidence that the present system has a deleterious effect on the presidency or on the governing of our nation.

DR. RANNEY: If we use evidence instead of the self-evident truths we used before [laughter], then Ken Bode is, of course, quite right. We only have a small number of cases, and it is very difficultto generalize. My view, however, is that the whole purpose of the rules is to make it easy to challenge an incumbent president. Henceforth, no incumbent president, whatever his name may be, will ever again have an absolute certainty of being renominated, regardless of the political conditions. One could say that that never was the case, but I think it was. It would be hard to imagine a less popular president than Herbert Hoover was in 1932, or one thought more likely to be a total political disaster for his party in reelection, a prophecy that turned out to be only too true. Yet, he was renominated on the firstballot without any serious challenge, because, of course, he was the party's president, and an incumbent president simply had to be renominated. That, I think, is gone and gone forever.

MR. BODE: I think that is true. It used to be axiomatic: If a sitting president was eligible for reelection, he could not be denied the nom­ ination. I think that was a flaw in our system that has been eliminated.

DR. RANNEY: It certainly has been eliminated.

MR. BODE: And should have been.

MR. SCAMMON: And should have been. Why should we automatically assume we elect for eight years? That wasn't the purpose of the Constitution, and it isn't the purpose of political life. The purpose is for the president to reestablish his connection with the voters and to let them assess his record in the first four years. I seem to be getting back to this primitive democractic business again, but the voters should throw him out if they don't like him. I don't think there is a God-given right to a second term.

DR. RANNEY: You don't have any particular individual in mind, do you?

16 MR. SCAMMON: No, I don't. [Laughter.] MR. DALY: Mr. Scammon has raised the issue of the Constitution. When we speak of what might happen in the future, are we discussing a constitutional question or just a political question? DR. RANNEY: That is an appropriate question. We are, after all, now in the bicentennial era where we are looking forward to the bicen­ tennial of the Constitution of the United States. If the constitutional system has any meaning above and beyond the few words in that famous historic document, then the way we select our president is surely an important part of that system. The founding fathers hardly knew or thought anything about political parties-most of what they said was disapproving-and they certainly would not have dreamed that we would select our presidents in the fashion we do. The way we select our presidents is as much a part of the Consti­ tution as anything written. When we make a fundamental change in our mode of selecting the president-which, for better or for worse, we certainly have done in the past decade-then, in my view, that is as profound a change in our total Constitution as anything adopted by formal amendment, and more profound than most of what is found in those twenty-six written amendments. RANDOLPH SIM, attorney: My question is directed to Mr. Broder. Do you feel that the reforms that we have been discussing will add to the significance of single-issue politics in the process of nomination? MR. BRODER: I am not sure what the relationship is to the flowering of single-issue politics. Clearly there were instances in 1976 of a can­ didate representing a single-interest position on the particular emo­ tional issue of abortion rights who did use this system essentially to propagandize within the political system for her viewpoint. And she did so with federal funds. One of the glories of the American political system is its openness and access, but I think we have to try to balance that by the kind of constraints and structure that are largely missing from this selection system. I don't think that the heart of our problem in governing this country today lies in the existence of what we call single-interest groups. What we are really talking about are voluntary associations of individuals joined together because they are concerned about a particular set of policy outcomes in the government. That is not only necessary and legitimate, but also highly desirable. What is missing in our political system are the integrative institu­ tions that force people, whether they are candidates pursuing a par-

17 ticular officeor citizens pursuing a particular policy, to come together and make the necessary accommodations that allow this country to go ahead on what we used to call the national interest. In that area I think our present presidential selection system does not serve us very well. MR. SCAMMON: I think Mr. Broder has raised an intriguing point because there is a tendency to attribute many goods and bads to one part of the political system-the presidential selection system-that belong instead to the total political system in which we live. Single-issue politics is an example. Single-issue politics is simply an outgrowth of what people are interested in. Relatively few people have multi-interest politics in the sense of a coalition of people who agree on all of eighteen points. That coalition would end up with three men and a dog because no more than that could agree. The whole tendency is to concentrate on the single issue as we have done historically. I am sure everyone remembers the free coin­ .age of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 with gold, a single issue of over­ whelming importance in 1896, and now almost totally forgotten. In the modernperiod, women's suffrage and prohibition were for fifty years two great single issues. It does not make much difference in single-issue politics which system is used-caucus and convention, which was used then, or the primary system, as we have now. When people have felt strongly about something, whether it was a hundred years ago or fifty years ago or today, they will work to get their viewpoint put into effect. Usually they will not work through a po­ liticalparty, because the political party is not normally the deviser of new ideas; it receives ideas, muddles them about a little, "bomfogs" over the whole operation, and ends up waiting until a decision is made; and then it endorses whoever won. [Laughter.] The whole operation against the Vietnam War was not a party operation, not Republicans versus Democrats; it was a single-issue operation. It was people concerned about getting us out of Vietnam. The issues of abortion, gun control, and so forth are a part of politics that represents people. If people are forced to follow party philoso­ phy, such as the program of 1893 of the German Social Democrats, or the Trotskyism of the New Labor Party in Britain, or Marxist Len­ inism, or whatever party may be running at the moment, then the nature of participatory democracy is destroyed because participatory democracy means that each person may raise an issue. If no agree­ ment can be reached, both sides are forgotten and someone else's problem is taken up. [Laughter.] MURIEL JOHNSON MURRAY, counsel to the Compliance Review Com-

18 mission of the Democratic National Committee: I haven't heard any­ one mention what I consider to be one of the fundamental underpinnings of the whole reform movement, the idea of restricting participation in the process to people who identify themselves as Democrats--theidea of the open primary, or, on the other hand, the closed process.

DR. RANNEY: I will be glad to speak to that. If I, at least, have not mentioned it, it is only because every last possible erg of energy that I have to spend on that question I spent in the course of the delib­ erations of the Winograd Commission. If Ken Bode isn't equally ex­ hausted on that question, I'll be very surprised. Let me say, however, that to a considerable degree, except for the incredible stubbornness of the people of Wisconsin-and I know something about that because I used to live there-I think it really is a non-issue. After all, what are we asking people to do? Those of us who wrote that regulation are asking people to participate in a primary system in which we impose a demanding and Draconian test for party membership: people are asked whether they want a Re­ publican or a Democratic ballot. If they say they want a Democratic ballot, they have passed the test. [Laughter.] I myself don't see that that greatly violates anyone's constitutional rights or freedom, although some do say even that question is a violation because people can't make their decision in secret. As a matter of fact, public opinion polls show that a fair number of people think it is a violation of their civil rights to be confined to vote in the primary of only one party. Of course, I must say that I have talked to some Canadians and British recently who think it is a violation of their civil rights that they cannot vote in American presidential elections. [Laughter.] I have a British friend who says it makes a good deal more difference to his health and welfare who the next president of the United States is than it does who the prime minister of Britain is, and, therefore, he ought to have a vote. [Laughter.] But I don't think that even Wis­ consin is prepared to go quite that far yet. [Laughter.] Party membership seems to me to be the most elementary require­ ment, and frankly, I don't think it will make much difference to the nature of the primaries or to who votes in them. It really is a nontest. MR. DALY: Would the panel describe the Winograd Commission? MR. BODE: The Winograd Commission was the third of three reform commissions the Democratic party has had go over its procedures for nominating presidential candidates. The first was the McGovern

19 Commission, later called the Fraser Commission, which was created by the 1968 convention after the tumult in Chicago. The second com­ mission was chaired by Representative Barbara Mikulski, then a coun­ cilwoman from Baltimore, in a period when people were impressed that the nominee of the 1972 convention did not do well. Counting backward from outcome, therefore, people were not pleased with the reforms. It was a very polarized commission. Morley Winograd, state chairman of Michigan, chaired the third commission. All three commissions went over the rules with a fine-toothed comb. I think there is now a core, a body of good and useful rules, of party law, that resulted from the commissions. CHARLES BUTIERWORTH, associate professor of political science, Uni­ versity of Maryland: It seems to me that at the beginning of the discussion Mr. Broder posed a problem that has not been addressed. He spoke in favor of what he called expert assessment and implicitly criticized what I would term mass appreciation. Would the other panelists care to speak against the idea of expert assessment or per­ haps in favor of the converse, namely, mass appreciation? MR. BRODER: It is an unanswerable argument. That is why they are silent. [Laughter.] MR. SCAMMON: I will tell you why one is silent. The prospect of considering the intelligent, detached judgment of the Chicago ward leader fills me with dismay. He is able to decide what will win his ward in the next election-how much and where paving money is spent, what is needed to take care of a zoning ordinance, and so forth. But intelligent, detached judgment implies that there is an olympian quality to the county chairman, which I think even the county chairman would deny, if he understood what we were talking about. [Laughter.] If by intelligent, detached judgment Mr. Broder means that local leaders have as a primary goal to get back in where they were, I can understand that. They should have an input, because getting back in where they were has a part to play in the whole political process. But I would not glorify it. I would not want to say that it represents the epitome of the human experience. [Laughter.] I would only say that among other things, if this leadership with its intelligent, de­ tached judgment has any capacity, it should have some effect on the election. It should persuade some of the voters to support the leaders and their candidates. MR. BODE: Let's look at what happens when the Democratic party adds in a mix of leaders, which it now has done. The Winograd

20 Commission added a mix of leaders over and above all the delegations that the states will pick. There will be some congressmen, senators, governors, and party leaders that will also be added as automatic ex officio delegates. John Sears described it best in 1976 when he was running Mr. Reagan's campaign. He said very simply that the party hierarchy is with an incumbent president. If the ex officio delegates are added automatically, that creates a built-in edge for an incumbent president. One thing the 1979 Florida caucuses reaffirmed is the capacity for an incumbent president to reach party leaders. We saw the Carter White House empty out. We saw federal grants flow to Florida. A local Kennedy leader told me in Florida that regardless of the results, the people of Florida should be very grateful to the Draft Kennedy Committee for loosening up the federal purse strings to that state. That is the kind of power an incumbent president has. I am still sufficientlyimpressed with the edge of incumbency in the presidential nominating process that I do not want to see additional advantage created.

MR. BRODER: Now we have heard the response, and here is what it is. First, Chicago ward leaders are not all graduates of the University of Chicago. I regret that personally. [Laughter.] But that does not, in any way, lessen my judgment, my opinion, that they are better prepared than the average citizen of Chicago, who has five minutes exposure to candidates on television, to make some assessment as to whether the candidates are electable and, if elected, whether they will bring embarrassment or glory to the party that sustains that ward leader. The second argument is that incumbent party officials are inclined to support an incumbent president. Right. And rightly so, because they picked him. They are stuck with him. They are responsible for him, and in a proper political ·system, they ought to bear the re­ sponsibility for his success or failure. [Applause.]

DR. RANNEY:The interesting point in the present case is that the party officials did not pick Mr. Carter. He picked himself. The voters in those primaries picked him. Not that most of the leaders of the Dem­ ocratic party were against Mr. Carter; they did not know him at all. They could not have identified a photograph of him. I wonder if, in this election year, the very fact that Mr. Carter was not their pick prompts a good many of them to feel that the party would do a good deal better in its candidates for the House, for the Senate, and for governor with a candidate-and they have one in mind-other than the incumbent president at the head of the ticket.

21 I suspect we will see a more substantial desertion of the incumbent president this time for precisely that reason. They did not pick him last time, but they will not decide this time any more than last time whether he gets nominated. That decision will be made by the wise citizens of Chicago in their five-minute deliberations and not by the ward heelers in Chicago.

RICHARD BROWNING, American Enterprise Institute: If we would have a president spend most of his time the last two years of his term governing rather than politicking, then isn't one six-year term pres­ idency imperative under the new system? DR. RANNEY:In view of the discussion we have heard here, the trouble with Mr. Connally's proposal for a six-year term is that it gives the president too much time in power. As I understand it, however, we have now made it easy to turn out a president after four years. It will be difficult for any incumbent president ever again to be reelected. Because we on the panel are proposing to turn the president out whether he has done well or badly after four years, not six, maybe Mr. Connally ought to join us. MR. BRODER: I think there is one serious problem with the six-year term. Everythingwe have been arguing here demonstrates essentially that we want to tie the president more closely to the rest of the politicalsystem so that he is i41.tegratedinto the governmental system and not a free-standing, independent, alien object, which too many of our recent presidents have felt themselves to be. If that is the objective, then I do not think the single six-year term accomplishes it for the simple reason that from the very moment the president is elected to that office, he becomes irrelevant to the political futures of everyone else who is part of an ongoing and recurring system of biennial or quadrennial elections. We want to make him very relevant to their lives. I think as a second practical consequence of the single six-year term, there is already a tendency in the presidency, as we have seen, for the man to become very frustrated with the intricacies of brokering tough domestic issues and to turn overseas to the glory of dealing with other great statesmen in the cause of international peace. If we have a president with a single six-year term, I think it is predictable that from the second year on, he will be running for the Nobel Peace prize, and we will be lucky to get him back here once a year to give a state of the union address. [Laughter.]

MR. SCAMMON: Very good.

22 MR. BODE: I think Mr. Broder is right about that. I also think a six­ year term would weaken the presidency in a very important political sense. One of the great powers of the president, at least in his first term, is that he might be around tomorrow to do either some good or some harm, and a single term simply eliminates that possibility. I don't think we should have even the twenty-second amendment, which limits a president to only two terms.

GARY Sourn, consultant: I question what I feel is a basically incorrect assumption of the panelists, that the reforms of the past decade were born of the patriotic desire of the states and of the party leaders to involve more people in the process. I really doubt if that is the reason at all. After sitting through party deliberations on establishing cau­ cuses and primaries where none existed in the past, I think the reason boils down to press coverage. I think many of the primaries in the last few years have come about because of the press attention focused on the New Hampshire primary. Since many of the caucuses, con­ ventions, and primaries have come about because of states' interest in national press coverage, do the panelists feel that we can go back on those reforms without having a fundamental change in the way the press covers politics?

MR. BODE: I spent a fair amount of time trying to figureout why states went to primary systems because I have often thought that the McGovern reforms have been unfairly blamed for increasing the num­ ber of primaries. After looking at the fifteen states that have gone to them, I find no common reason. However, I think the desire for national press coverage is one thread that runs through some states. In 1976, for example, three western states, Nevada, Montana, and Idaho, scheduled their primary on the same day as Oregon to create a regional concept. There are shenanigans in the South now to or­ ganize a regional concept. The Republican governor of Texas, for example, would like to have an energy states primary. Louisiana just adopted a primary, and Louisiana is not Common Cause country by-and-large in its politics. [Laughter.] I asked the counsel to the governor, his chief of staff, why the state adopted a primary. Mr. Broder, I think you will be interested in his reasoning. He said that the political leaders of the state simply could not figure out how to bet right on elections. In 1960, they backed Johnson and Kennedy won. In 1964, they supported Goldwater and Johnson won. In 1968, they were for Humphrey, and Wallace carried the state. In 1972, they were wrong again. In 1976, they were against Carter, and he won the state. They finally decided to let the people choose who Louisiana would support.

23 MR. SCAMMON: Very sound.

MR. BODE: I do not think there is a common reason why states adopt primaries. Maryland did not have a primary in 1968 because in 1964 George Wallace ran against the Democratic governor, who was Lyn­ don Johnson's stand-in, did well, and embarrassed the state; so Mary­ land went to a state committee selection system. In 1972, however, Maryland went back to a primary. It is a hodgepodge. One cannot figure it out.

MR. SCAMMON: Louisiana's decision to hold a primary is intriguing because similar decisions are being made now in Europe. A refer­ endum was held in England in 1975 and one will be held very shortly in Sweden to settlemajor national public issues. Party leaders finally decided that the party system is too fragile to take decisions about the European Common Market in Britain or nuclear power in Sweden. These European countries have come, without knowing it, to the same judgment as our friends in Louisiana, that maybe, just maybe, if all else fails, the people can be turned to for answers to these questions.

DR. RANNEY: Another important point should be made in answer to the question. The notion that all of these decisions were made by the states separately and individually and that most of the changes have come about because of what the states have done seems to miss the mark considerably. Certainly, states added presidential primaries because their legis­ latures so voted, but the rules governing the selection of Democratic delegates to the national convention from every state were adopted by the Democratic National Committee after the recommendations of commissions such as the McGovern-Fraser Commission and the Winograd Commission. The Supreme Court in the case of Cousins v. Wigoda held that the rules a national party makes to govern the selection of delegates to the national convention are superior to state laws covering the same thing. This was a case ruling on the famous 1972 instance in which the people of Illinois, acting fully in accord with the primary laws of that state-a closedprimary, I might add-selected Mayor Daley and his delegates from Cook County. The way the slate was formed, however, violated the rules of the National Democratic Party. The National Democratic Party refused to seat those delegates and took another delegationthat had been elected by no one. When that action was challenged in the Supreme Court, the Court held that the power

24 of the National Democratic Party to select its own delegates is superior to state laws. Fundamentally, the selection of delegates will be decided not by the states but by the national party. It is my view that if the national party were to decide that delegates should not be selected through primaries, the national party has it fully within its legal, constitu­ tional, and party power to set up a system of delegate selection that would not recognize the results of the primaries at all. The ballgame is therefore in the national party, and not in the individual states.

MR. BODE: I don't think there is any question about your interpretation of Cousins v. Wigoda; however, the states have had it entirelyin their province to establish these primaries, and they are the ones that have done it.

DR. RANNEY: And the national party has it entirely within its power to ignore them, although it has not done so yet. The national party may ignore the Wisconsin primary, because it looks very much as though Wisconsin will follow its traditional LaFollette-oriented open primary. If so, the voting delegates in the 1980 Democratic convention will not be delegates chosen by the laws of Wisconsin, but by the laws of the Democratic party.

MR. SCAMMON: An important point must be made here. The party does not have the right to establish state law. What the party does have the right to do is to seat or not to seat delegates. DR. RANNEY: That is right, to ignore state law.

MR. SCAMMON: In other words, if Wisconsin has its primary and a million people tum out to elect their delegates, then it is up to the party whether or not it is prepared to reject the choices of those people. Of course, almost every seat in the national convention involves not law but who is on which side for which candidate, so I presume that will operate in the case of Wisconsin. I think it is important for us to remember, however, that, at least as yet, the courts have not given to the national parties the right to establish state law. All the parties can do is decide who will be accepted. DR. RANNEY: No, the Court has given the parties the right to ignore state law.

MR. SCAMMON: To accept what delegates they wish.

25 MR. BODE: This does raise the intriguing question of whether the parties, at their initiative, could restructure a nominating system that they think is now tilted too far in the direction of primaries.

MR. SCAMMON: Sure they could. Party leaders could tell people to adopt the party's system or else.

DR. RANNEY: I have a picture of John White, who honors us with his presence in the audience, saying to the Democratic chairman in Wis­ consin, "Vee haf vays." [Laughter.] Of course, if John White said that, it wouldn't be in that accent. JOHNWHITE, chairman of the Democratic National Committee: I rise not to make a statement, but in self-defense. I have met with the Wisconsin state chairman, but the conversation did not go quite that way. In fact, it may have been the other way around. [Laughter.] My question goes back to something Mr. Scammon touched on. Through the reforms we have obviously opened the party process, and it is easier and easier to participate. It is easier to vote now than it has ever been in the history of this country. My question then is, Why do we have a smaller percentage of the people participating in this easy but important process? If you can give a short answer to why you think the number continues to decline, can you give us a solution? MR. SCAMMON: The total number of people voting in Democratic and Republican presidential preference primaries is going up, partly, if not entirely, because of the increase in the number of primaries. But I think you are referring to the general level of participation in No­ vember. As I said earlier, I think this may be an act of wisdom. People just simply decided that voting in the presidential election isn't that important. I mentioned earlier the example of the Boston School Committee and Judge Garrity. When power is taken away from people, they respond. When personality is taken away frompeople, they respond. John Kennedy was the most popular vote getter, not in the total votes he received, but in the sense that the 1960 election brought out a higher percentage of voters than any other election since World War I. Maybe we need popular candidates. Voter participation has cer­ tainly diminished except in the gross participation in presidential preference primaries.

MR. BODE: The polls tell us that people are disaffected in general with

26 American political institutions. When asked what they think of the president, they say "not much." When asked what they think of Congress, they say "less." When asked if they think there is any difference between the political parties, they say "no." When asked if they think candidates will deliver on their p. ·omises, they say "no." The pollsters began to find in 1976 a positive, forceful statement of an intent not to vote in that election. Those people were saying essentially that they did not want any liability in the outcome. We reach a dangerous point in a polity when that happens. I think that attitude, however, is bottoming out. As the generation that came of age in the 1960 election, the baby boom generation, is inducted into the electorate, I think we will see a sharp change not only in voting habits but also in the content of voting. Another reason I think people are not voting is that in the House of Representatives, for example, 90 to 95 percent of those seeking reelection are reelected. All sorts of institutional factors are respon­ sible for that. But, the fact is there is no contest. What is the difference if people do not vote when there is no contest anyway? I can't help but believe that that fact sinks in to the voters after a while.

DR. RANNEY: Mr. White, that is a profound question, and I think we have heard here two bits and pieces of the answer. I will give another bit of the answer, but I am sure there are parts of it we don't know. Part of the answer lies in a profound revolution that has taken place in American life, what I call the communications revolution. For most of the people in the United States today, political reality is far more what comes over television than ever before. What does come over television about politics? I do not believe that television is biased for or against Republicans or Democrats, for or against liberals or conservatives; but I do think that, in the very nature of the medium, it is biased against politics. There is a good deal of evidence that many correspondents hold this bias. As correspondents talk about politicians on television, they indicate that you must look past what a politician says, to his "real" reasons for doing what he is doing. They always find a self-seeking reason. They believe that a politician does what he thinks will get him reelected; that he does not necessarily believe what he says or stand for principles. If most people obtain their understanding of political reality from television-and all of our studies show this is true-and if television depicts politicians as self-seeking hypocrites, frequently liars, and quite often thieves, who act not out of lofty motives but because they want to get reelected, then it is understandable that people choose

27 not to sully their hands by participating in a process that is run by politicians. I think that attitude is part, though obviously not all, of the answer.

MR. BODE: You did not make clear, Dr. Ranney, whether you think that attitude is a rnisperception on the part of the people.

DR. RANNEY: I have no doubt whatever that it is a misperception, Ken, and I have no doubt that even you know it is a rnisperception.

MR. SCAMMON: I will add a poin� here to what Dr. Ranney said. In talking around the country about politics, I tell people that in many instances I think the average member of Congress votes his personal conviction on many issues that come before him. This is always greeted with raucous disbelief. People ask who am I to be telling them that Congressmen have anything more than the most crass, most unbelievably corrupt motives. But their view is not true. I think in many cases a member simply votes the way he thinks is right. That does not mean that other motives have no effect on some votes. Obviously, if a member comes from a wheat-growing state, he will not vote against every wheat subsidy program. In general, it is true that the public has an extremely low opinion of Mr. Carter and an even lower opinion of the Congress.

ELLIOTIABRAMS, attorney, Washington, D.C.: One of the magnificent achievements of the reform process has gone unmentioned here, and that is the imposition of a quota system that makes the ones in the Weber and Bakke cases look like a spin at the wheel of fortune. I find it very strange. If the purpose of the process was to achieve open participation on the part of Democrats, why was it necessary to man­ date the outcome in that way? The question is addressed, at least initially, to Mr. Bode, who had something to do with the imposition of that quota system.

MR. BODE: I will decline the first crack at this question because I was just a staff member on that commission, and Dr. Ranney was a mem­ ber of the commission. [Laughter.] But I intend to answer.

DR. RANNEY: It has gone so far that there is a general and perhaps justifiedskepticism about the answers of even the staffs of politicians here, judging fromthe audience reaction to your statement, Mr. Bode. When I raised the same question you asked, Mr. Abrams, on the

28 Winograd Commission, other staff members asked what was wrong with me-did I not favor equal, fair and decent treatmentfor women? I said I thought women ought to have exactly the same chance, no more, no less, as everyone else had. No discrimination and no quotas. That position was regarded as sexist, and ultimately was a minority position.

MR. DALY: Has not the position changed so that affirmativeaction for women and minorities is required?

DR. RANNEY: No, sir. There is now a 50 percent quota for women. Every state must have equal representation of women in its delega­ tion. That is the rule now governing the Democratic convention.

MR. SCAMMON: There is no reason why this should be regarded as anything new. Equal representation of men and women has been the rule since 1920 in the two national committees. I agree with Mr. Abrams that the quota system is strange, and I agree with Mr. Bode that the two-term limitation on presidents is undesirable. If we believe in democracy, then the people should be allowed to vote and to elect whom they want. If we do not believe in democracy, if we do not believe the people will do the right thing, as we define the right thing, then quotas, two-term limitations, and every other twist of the natural may be used to correct what many regard as the essential misjudgment of the mass. To that, gentlemen, I would only add that phrase of Carl Sandburg, "The people, yes." If we really believe in the people, then we do not believe in these artificial restraints upon their decision making. [Applause.]

MR. BODE: The original response of the McGovern Commission to this question was affirmative action, not quotas, not predetermined outcomes. We have gotten to the point now, with respect at least to men and women, where we do have a 50-50 quota in effect. I think there are those who would add that we want a quota of elected officialsin addition to delegations. To me, that also is a quota of people, automatic ex officio delegates. At the 1968. convention, 5 percent of the delegates were black, when at a minimum 20 percent of the Democratic electorate was black; 13 percent of the delegates were women; and very few young people were represented at that convention. The commission realized that something was wrong in the historical processes, and it tried to figure out a way to set that straight. In the struggles that ensued over the matter of quotas, the com-

29 mission skated on very thin ice, and in 1972 there were many chal­ lenges of credentials. I think that ever since the party has been trying to figure out exactly what it should be doing, but I do not think that anyone ever thought this was to be a permanent arrangement. A permanent arrangement is what it has turned out to be, however, as far as men and women are concerned. Affirmative action was an effort to overcome the effects of past discrimination, envisioned to last through a couple of elections maybe, and that was all. However, it has not worked that way.

MR. BRODER: Just one finalobservation. It is late in the game to men­ tion this, but there is a second party in this country called the Re­ publicans. [Laughter. Applause.] Somehow, being the shy and backward creatures they are, they have gotten through this past decade without consuming a great portion of their energies in the process of internal reform. One of the things that may soon be tested is whether a reformed party can compete effectively with an unreformed party. We have very limited evidence so far, but the evidence is as follows. In 1972, the Republican candidate for president got 64 percent of the vote. In 1976, he got 49% percent of the vote. By my mathematics, the Republicans are somewhat ahead of the game. We will have anothertest of that in 1980, and we will see whether a party laboring in the political competition without the benefits of the reforms of the Democratic party can successfully compete in our final battleground.

MR. DALY: On that note, this concludes another public policy forum presented by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Re­ search. On behalf of AEI, our hearty thanks to the distinguished and expert panelists, Mr. Richard Scammon, Mr. David S. Broder, Mr. Ken Bode, and Dr. Austin Ranney, and to our guests and our experts in the audience for their participation.

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