In the news

•Campaign fundraising in the 3rd quarter:

•Clinton $27 million, Obama $20 mil, Edwards $7 mil, Richardson $5.2, Biden <$2, Dodd $1.5

•Romney $10 mil, Thompson >$8, McCain >$5, Giuliani hasn’t released his figures yet (and he fired his chief fundraiser on Friday).

•Dems have raised $90 million more than Repubs.

•Giuliani cell phone call during speech.

•Polling data on political record versus personal life.

 

 Getting Elected

•Is the system broken?

Frontloading with Iowa and New Hampshire playing too big a role.  57% of D delegates and 53% of R delegates will be chosen by Feb 5, 2008.  In 1972, only 17% of the delegates were committed by mid-April!

Too much money:  in the first six months of 2007, the candidates for president raised more than $265 million. Most ever.  Likely to be close $400 million by the end of the 3rd quarter reporting period.  Total contributions to candidates for all of 2004 (primary and general election) was $528.9 million.

Low voter turnout in primaries and caucuses:  record low 17.2% in 2004 in states that had D+R primaries, 9.7% when only D and 6.4% when only R; caucus turnout, for the most part, was even lower.

Process drags on too long!

 

•The presidential selection process: (diagram)

 

Percentage of Delegates Selected Through Presidential Primaries, by Party, 1912-2008

Number of Presidential Primaries, by Party, 1912-2008

 

Nomination process

•Distinction between primaries and caucuses.

•Current delegate selection rules

•Winner-take all

•Proportional

•Proportional with bonus

•Advisory primaries or “beauty contests.”

•Superdelegates (848 of 4360 Dems, 19.5%; 665/2517 Repubs, 26.4%).

•Advantages and disadvantages of winner-take-all vs. proportional.

 

 

Nomination process

• Primary electorate

•More ideologically extreme.

•Crossover voting in open primaries.

•Role of independent voters (NYTimes/CBS News poll).

•Consequences of the nomination process

                        For parties:  Dems tend to have more drawn-out nomination battles.

                        For who runs – used to be large-state govs (1896-1956), then senators (1960-1972), then professional candidates (however, both Clinton and Bush were incumbent govs. when elected).  Now a mix.

 

Dynamics of the nomination process

Ingredients for success

            Money – especially important because of frontloading.  “Super Duper Tuesday,” Feb 5th.

            Organization – crucial in states like NH and Iowa.  Internet helps replace organization to some extent.

            Media and poll standing

Exceeding expectations – more important than winning, especially in early primaries.

Winnowing the field:  more than two candidates is unstable.

 

Campaign finance

lFederal Election Campaign Act (1971 and 1974 amendments).  Public financing of presidential elections.  Matching contributions for primary season, grant for general elections.  So far, Edwards is only one of top Dems to take matching money.

lBCRA – raised individual contribution limits, eliminating soft money.  527 loophole.  FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life (2007).  Ad against a senate filibuster on court nominations. The ad asked people to contact Senators Kohl and Feingold to let them know how they felt on the filibuster issue. Feingold was running for re-election at the time so the ads could not air under BCRA. Now they can.  Will be lots of these types of ads in 2008.

 

Nominating Conventions

•Number of delegates:

•Dems:  ½ on population, ½ based on how well the Dem candidate did in each state in the previous three elections.

•Repubs:  each state gets 10 “base at-large” and 3 party delegates, plus three delegates per congressional district.  Also complicated bonus allocation based on Repub strength in state.  So overall, 29% equally allocated by state, 52% by population, and 19% party strength bonus.

•Deadlocked convention?  Dem. delegates are bound on the first ballot (if they are pledged), but Repub delegate rules vary by state on this point.  Candidates may release delegates at any point.

 

Election technology

lBallot form – the infamous butterfly ballot in 2000 in Florida.

lElection machinery

–ATM-style electronic voting.  Problem of no paper trail.  Florida 13th district in 2006, R won by 369 votes, but 18,000 votes were lost.

–Optical scan

–Paper ballots, lever machines.

–Punch card ballots (source of many of the problems in Florida in 2000).