As the U.S. political system has evolved into it’s current form, there has been a variety of procedures for the nomination of elected officials. As a nation, we have experimented with various nomination procedures in order to find a “balance” between the rights of the parties and the individual voters. The early nomination methods used, the caucus and party convention, gave the parties themselves most of the power to choose their candidates. This gives power to the politicians to choose the candidate they feel would be “best”, which may not be the same candidate that the voters truly want.
Since Wisconsin started using the direct primary to nominate officials in 1903, the procedure or at least similar variations have really caught on. The direct primary is seen to place control of the political process under the population and not the party organizations. This places control under the states, and is not ideal in the eyes of the party, as the general public may nominate candidates who are not in line with a majority of the party. When the parties themselves are allowed to choose, they are more likely to choose a neutral candidate who can work with the entire party. The different types of primaries basically differ on their ticket-splitting rules, as primaries can be used as a weapon among opposing parties. It’s possible for a voter to vote in a primary for a “weak” candidate of the opposing party, hoping to create little competition so their own party wins the election. Nonparty members can therefore influence the nomination of other parties through the different primary systems.
No matter the method of choosing candidates, running an election is expensive, especially at the national level. Parties alone do not have the resources to run huge campaigns, so as individuals and organizations have unique desires from government, they try to influence the elections to help their desired candidate win. This is easily done through campaign donations, more money=more advertising and media= more exposure in today’s political world. Enter campaign finance regulation, which is aimed at removing some of the importance of money in the political system. The idea is that a good candidate may not even attempt to run if they have little resources, and eliminate someone’s “buying of influence” by contribution to a campaign. To cut back on this, regulations have been placed on a candidate’s contribution and expenditure limits. However, there are many loopholes to these regulations. Candidates can get funding indirectly from their own parties, and can gather “soft money” and funds from 527 groups.
These efforts do seem to work at cross-purposes, and seem very unrealistic to me. Even though campaign finance has been regulated for some time, there are so many loopholes and blurry lines that companies/wealthy individuals can still put lots of money into elections. Ideally, money shouldn’t influence a democracy as it does, but to compete in today’s campaigns, large amounts of funds are necessary. There is no way all factions could be removed from politics, people need to join together for common causes, and they will gather funding to advance their cause.
I wonder what comparisons you can draw between parties and voters picking partisan candidates and small and large donors financing elections? Are they philosophically similar? Would parties be better off, electorally, with large corporate sponsors and smoke-filled room chosen candidates?
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