The years. And every once in a while this system almost breaks down and we have an oldfashioned, tough contested primary. Let me read you the beginning of the book as an illustration of that. Senator Hillary Clinton walked into the small Conference Room on capitol hill wearing one of her signature pants suits. This one still with white piping. It was may twentysecond 2008 and she was in the homestretch of the race for the democratic nomination. Along the way, her once surefire quest had run into a phenomenon, a first term senator from illinois, half white, half africanamerican named barack obama. Her husband, former president bill clinton famously called the first black president by author toni morrison, the black community reject is called to support his wife and rallied to obama. Hillary and bill seemed old friends like new mexico governor Bill Richardson endorsed obama. Despite many setbacks clintons delicate countless close to obamas. She has had a strong finish and a good argument for why she was a strong general election candidate and yet in this end she needed delegates. One week later, Hillary Clinton ended her president ial race in a speech for hundreds of supporters in washington d. C. Hers were not the first president ial campaign and it would not be the last whose faith would be untangled with party nominating rules which is the topic of this book. Let me start by what i call the first chapter of gold days, when parties controlled nominations and primaries were to be avoided at all costs. We forget, some of our great president s, franklin roosevelt, abraham lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, were actually nominated in conventions composed of superdelegates. Nobody voted for these guys in primaries, primaries were not important, they assisted but were not important. Suppose for instance, our three return president s, roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and john kennedy found themselves in the middle of the campaign nomination. The object today is the same as it would be in their days to accumulate a majority of delegates at the nominating convention. There, however, the similarities would end. The strategy for winning the nomination today, there is little resentment to the strategy of days gone by because the system is so different. For instance imagine roosevelts confusion to hear people talking about momentum in february. In roosevelts day momentum was a term described the at the convention itself. Imagine eisenhowers reaction to howard baker, as majority leader of the senates as well as his senate seat four years before the president ial election in order to campaign some time. Imagine how all these men would react to a democratic primary race in which two senior democratic senators, joe biden and chris dodd who between them had lost 70 years in the United States congress were never seriously considered for their partys nomination because all the attention and energy were consumed by a former first lady and first term africanamerican senator. So the point here is the alleged war college race, the general election is still very much the same as it has been throughout our history but between 1968 and 1972, the Democratic Party was part and parcel of a huge reform system, reform of the nomination system. The of proximate cause of those reforms was on the part of antiwar democrats and when and minorities that the old system cut them out of the action. The old system famously categorized as old white men talking to grooms was simply not representative of the party and what the party was becoming. Between 1968, and 1972, and 1976, a whole series of commissions were appointed in the Democratic Party and i write about these in the book and the players and what they were thinking about and they fundamentally changed the nomination system from what it had been from 1832 all away to 1968. That is a big span of years. The thing about it is from 1832 to 1968 president ial candidates knew how to do this. They knew what the nominating system was. After 1968 the world changed, the democrats changed it inadvertently for the republicans as well. Democrats were still a very strong party for what the country. There were the remains of the new Deal Coalition so there were a lot of legislatures in democratic control. What happened in this period of time was as the democrats in the Legislature Passed laws creating primaries they created primaries for the republicans as well so what we have during this period of time is the transformation of the old system to the new system and put simply the old system was semi public system. It was hard to see. Goldwater in 1964 completely the republican establishment by getting enough delegates to win the Convention Even when Nelson Rockefeller is winning primaries. Something that is inconceivable today. But the world really did change in this period of time. And has so understanding that change, let me talk about a couple of the features of the Current System which has remained more or less the same from 1972 to today, that helped us understand what it is about. First of all let me say this is a system in which sequence matters. Unlike any other election in the american political system this is a. C. Rees of elections. Is not one election but is a series of elections, and they are not quite straightforward. Each election in each state is picking delegates and they are picking delegates to the essentially go to convention and i will get to the convention in a minute. Because it turned into a sequential contest jimmy carter was the first president ial candidate in 1976 to get it. One of my captors is called sequence as strategy. In any president ial race, a i can promise you right now tonight there are Campaign Operatives looking at this calendar. In any raise the issue is what is the sequence of events . Where do we think we can win . Where might we lose and how in this period of six months do we put together enough delegates for a convention . Jimmy carter got it and to the surprise of Scoop Jackson who did not understand this, he began by winning a surprise victory in the Iowa Caucuses. A lot of people ask me why are iowa and New Hampshires first . The answer to that is odd. They have always been first, they were always early. Is just that in the old system it didnt matter. In the old system, sequence didnt matter. After the new rules two things changed that very important. First of all the rule was that the first step in the nomination process that had to be at the same time and the same place throughout the state hands people participating had to indicate who they were for. Suddenly these sleepy Iowa Caucuses that used to elect precinct delegates to county conventions and face still do in both parties suddenly where it turned into the functional equivalent of a primary. In other words, reporters could go there as they will honor should your refers to, observe each caucus, get the tallies and at 11 00 Eastern Standard Time they could declare a winner of the Iowa Caucuses. Jimmy carter got that, nobody else quite did that year and he catapulted the Iowa Caucuses in to relieve the first important step and we will see that on february 1st, a lot of reporters around the world converged on iowa in a real freak show of attention. The New Hampshire primary was first in the nation since 1911. Nobody paid much attention to primaries in the old system so from time to time the New Hampshire primary was important but mostly what it signals the party leads him that in those smokefilled rems and conventions of for instance harry truman did not do well in the New Hampshire primary in 1952, decided not to run for reelection. Lyndon johnson did not do well in the New Hampshire primary in 1968, decided was not going to run for reelection. That was the extent of the importance of New Hampshire, but the whole system became public and the whole system changes, then what matters is momentum and what moment and means in this instance and i write a lot about how it works in this, success or failure in one contest impacts voterss behavior in another contest and on and on it goes. We will see on the morning of february 2nd some republicans mostly because there are a lot of them and maybe some democrats, not too many of them, they will say i cant go on and they will be out of the race. That is the importance of momentum. The other thing that happens as this moves on is instead of looking at who won New Hampshire or iowa the public and the press will start to pay a lot of attention to something called the delegate count. Since we can split human beings who are delegates into pieces the delegates are awarded as people. Some mathematics plays a role here. Around these rules that play in each state or the system of awarding delegates all of a sudden makes a big big difference so lets look at 1980. Ronald reagans team in 1918 new looking at this sequence, knew that at some point in the spring, start paying attention to have has the most delegates and reagans friends in massachusetts did him a favor with obviously the help of his campaign. They said Ronald Reagan i am sorry. 1976. Ronald reagan is not going to do well in this state. Gerald ford said the sitting president is a much more of a massachusetts republican, Ronald Reagan will probably get it. If massachusetts had been a winnertakeall state then gerald ford would have gotten all of massachusettss delegates so the reagan people said to their friends in the massachusetts legislature, how about awarding your delegates proportionally . By awarding them proportionally Ronald Reagan won delegates. Candidates who understand have a huge advantage so for instance barack obama went right into new york state and targeted all that africanamerican districts understanding correctly that he could get a delegate harvest out of those African American districts even while Hillary Clinton was swinging her home state of new york. This brings me to are really important point. After the first contest this is not a state by state contests in the way the of the tour college is. This is in 435 Congressional Districts because that is where the delegates are awarded. You can go on the republicans side where they have a lot of winnertakeall systems by district, a republican can lose the state and picket delegates in a couple districts. This is how mitt romney won, mitt romney wasnt having any big victories until april of 2012 ainge a Strong Enough candidate organization and backing for states he was losing, he was picking up delegates and that is the name of the game. If we end up with a tight race under democratic side or at tight race on the republicans side come about march we are going to start leading delegate counts and that is the name of the game. Which brings me to the near final chapter to the convention. Just as people ask where did this crazy system happen . They also asked do conventions really matter . Some years ago i was given a talk like this in cape cod where i live most of the time and the audience was fairly elderly, an elderly woman came up to me and said now i understand. I said what is it you understand . She said now i understand why conventions are not exciting anymore. When i was a girl conventions were really exciting. People gathered around the television or the radio and listen to all four days of the convention. The reason conventions used to be exciting is that is the place where all the back room mack nations that have taken place in the two years before, because president ial candidates did start two years before. This is not a new phenomenon, just that we didnt see it so we didnt know. By the convention you actually see what has been happening. By the Republican Convention in 1964 to the surprise of the press corps not to mention the republican establishment and able bit of relationship to what might be happening now, by the Republican Convention the republican establishment realized they had been taken over by Barry Goldwater conservatives and while he lost big time, that remains a remarkable story of the old system being taken over literally from the ground up. And go back to the question of do conventions matter, mostly we think they dont because that nomination is decided in the primaries and delegates have historically walked into these conventions and been bound by the people in their states. They dont change very much, we had three contested conventions in the post reform era, the 1976 republicans, the 1980 democrats and the 1972 democrats and in each of those the person who won in the primaries won denomination because their delegates stuck with them. However it does not mean brokered conventions are completely gone. It all depends on what happens in the primaries. Is entirely possible that somebody, particularly in a big feel like we had this time, entirely possible that nobody walks into their convention with the majority of delegates. Entirely possible that it is split. If there is no perspective then you have a brokered convention indeed in the old days that used to happen quite frequently although the 1924 convention which went Something Like 118 ballots was unusual but in the old days it used to go, they used to happen quite regularly. Now the primary voters report this out and that is why it doesnt happen. So finally i have often isnt there a more rational way of doing this. It makes sense. Why dont we have a national primary, why dont we have regional primaries . There are a ton of smart ideas out there has to a better way of doing this and the simple answer is when it comes to the nomination process there is no desire, nobody is really in charge. In fact 153 separate political bodies have something to say about the nomination process and who are they . The congress of the United States periodically has something to say, they Pass Campaign finance laws. The Republican National committee, the Democratic National committee have a lot to say about it. There are 50 state republican committees, 50 state democratic committees and just for good measure 50 state legislatures. Will they all agree, no. What is the probability they would all fail . The system is more rational, we are going to do that, not going to happen and they all have a piece of this. They all have a piece of this so that is the fundamental problem. That is why in 2016 as we begin this nomination race you will see a race that is as complex and differentiated as the United States of america itself. Thank you and i will take some questions. [applause] a little more about what happened in 1972, a 5872. Was the earlier system one in which the allied for college delegates were not bound to follow the role of the primaries in the states and now they are . The biggest change between 68 and 72 was first of all increased the number of primaries but the rules said that the primary, the delegates had to be bound by the outcome of the primaries so George Mcgovern won 50 of the delegates, 50 of the popular vote, it was expected that 50 of the delegates would be governed so there was a challenge to the big challenge in 72 from illinois because Jesse Jackson took an illinois delegation that reflected the results of the primary and old mayor daily on a father of just passed daily, has a delegation that a traditional delegation of his party leaders, Union Officials etc. And the first credential in sight at the 72 convention was over who would be seated from illinois. Jackson won, mayor daley and his crowd walked out of the convention. It was not good in the long run for George Mcgovern but it showed just how much things were changing. Prior to that word there situations in which the primary went one way and delegates would do whatever they wanted to do . All the time, constantly. Constantly. There were only 16 primaries from 1968 and most of them were close contests meaning they had no bearing on the delegates for who they voted for etc. Once in a while some of the western states or progressive states, there would be something but by and large the primaries and the delegates were disinterested. A lot of debate as to how important iowa, New Hampshire, choosing the eventual nominee and other states like ohio and florida so i am wondering from your perspective how much of an impact. I note momentum is a factor but how much of an impact do voting states have . Good question. Let me answer it in 2 ways. First of all, they almost always win out the field. They always almost always reduce the field by a couple candidates. I have worked for candidates who the next day have dropped out. My dear friend Bruce Babbitt was out of the race the day after i. We went skiing that day and that was a lot of fun. Theres always a willing to. The seco. The secondnnowing. The second. The second way of looking at that it is a question of expectations. It is not necessarily the winner of the popular vote. 1992, bill clinton goes into New Hampshire with maybe the worst hand we have ever seen in a president ial candidacy. You say dope smoking draft dodging womanizer ok . Quoting Mary Madeleine on the republicans side. That is what he is perceived as, right . He comes in second to paul tsongasus. Is votes were discounted from New Hampshire and massachusetts. And clinton who people expected to be dead finishes a strong second and by finishing a strong second he becomes the come back kid. And bed difference of 10 points from what we expect to happen is what happened in either direction. It has a big impact on the candidate, howard the candidate is perceived first by the press and the press conveys that to the voters. We can see all sorts of shifts in this race resulting from iowa, New Hampshire and the expectations. Both of these states are in little thick so their delegates dont matter at all. Later states have large numbers of delegates. At this stage it is of little early. Is it tuesday . Whistle bound or start to really show the direction. Ask whats point do we see this race. We see iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and nevada, and sanctioned by both parties as early as both parties. Funny thing to realize in recent years, democrats and republicans and the color of the sky, pitted against each other. Democrats and republicans have been talking all the time about the timing of the process. There is general agreement what february looks like. We go to march 1st supertuesday, 14 states, a lot of that southern. The day after supertuesday we see a lot of what this race looked like. Two weeks later we have another day with a lot of delegates chosen, and that would show them. As we move into april and getting to more big states, in the midatlantic or have another delegate, my guess is somewhere between march 1st and tax day in april, april 15th, we will have a pretty good sense of who is winning. If the race is going radically back and forth and back and forth, you will hear a lot of talk. Potential issues emerge without sufficient delegates in the first round, but get to the convention. You get to is the convention and as delegates, some are bound by state statute so that is not enforceable. Party rules in each party that kind of gently say you should vote for the person you are elected to vote for and so they will get to the convention and generally on the first ballot, people will vote the way their states vote. Finished at nobody has a majority or gets the nomination, everybody is free. And the interesting stuff happens. At thirdplace candidate deci t where theyre going to move, if from comes in with antipathy in the republican establishment, you can see candidates forming a coalition to defeat from. There would be a lot of anger and emotion around this but that is what used to happen in the old days. The important thing i believe in these days, they would take that first ballot votes and then it is up to everybody negotiating skills. I missed the first part of your talk. I would like to tell you personally how aggrieved and i am by all this because i am from california. Our primaries if i may, so Everybody Knows we have a 13 of the nations population. Your book is about the primary, not the general but in general we provide 55, 270 led 40 votes and my vote has never counted. I got gray hair. No one moved earlier in march of 2000 and we are hoping we have some influence but it turned out it was over it this. In both parties,. Be mccain by then, gore had been bradley so every june 13th of us go to calfs a vote in the primary but it is irrelevant and that we could to the general election and because we have been in the blue state red states garrisons 1992 it doesnt matter if you are democrat or republican your phone is meaningless. I feel like i have never been able to cast a meaningful vote. You are exactly right. Welcome to d. C. Or frankly welcome to new york. In the allied for college lot of states have no say in modern time just be cautious states are so polarized and america afforded itself out into red states and blue state sen read counties and. Counties and surprising how homogeneous we have become by geography. In the nominating system the problem is it was always a sequential system. If you switch to a national primary, everybody will spend their time in california because if you want to get a plurality of the votes you go to the most populous state and where would you be . In california, texas, florida, new york, southern Southern States around the great lakes, that is where you go, did know if you change the event for college so there would be electors awarded to the winner of the National Vote and this is a very intriguing idea because you would not be a Constitutional Convention to do it so each state could decide to give their two senate votes to the winner of the National Vote. Then people go to california because they want to get the National Product but it is interesting, in those instances in our nomination process and general election process we dont have a direct vote. It is mediated in one instance by delegates ended the harrisons by electors who. My students whenever i teach president ial election, i show my students photographs and fair you can find on news of the to the a video of the ohio meeting of the electors in 2012 a and everybody is amazed to discovered they are actual real people, real life individual people who go to the state legislature as the Founding Fathers predicted and they signed affidavits and send them to the United States senate, that is how the system works. Jeff greenfield, a supporter of cbs for many years, you may remember him, not a best seller but i always thought it was an interesting thing. He wrote a novel about a president ial candidate who died in between election day and the meeting of the alecto rollcall ledge and so he was not officially president so his Vice President couldnt succeed him and his vicepresident ial running mate was apparently a doofus with all sorts of problems, people were not happy with him he plays this out in the Electoral College where the men and women actually matter and it becomes like a brokerage convention where said levys individuals, these days you go to the convention ended as a sort of boring and used in there with your sine and way of the sign when they tell you to waive this 9 but it is kind of boring, there is nothing to do. Imagine a brokered convention would be pretty exciting as wood and all that door college that mated difference. I came in late and didnt hear your opening remarks. I wonder what effect the id laws have on the upcoming collection, the primary and general election. Depends on how they are implemented and how well people understand them. There could be suppression of those in various places. Isis that the Democratic Party is monitoring this closely and there will be a lot of election lawyers ready to look at this in the general election. In the primaries i am not sure that they both have that infrastructure but i know ever since 2008, National Political parties have really done a job monitoring elections jones in the states and possible infractions of civil rights. I think we will see both the parties are ready for them. One more thing. It occurred to me if we interchanging there is another if thing that happens in california doesnt happen in new york because we are three hours behind. Often president ial race is over at 5 00 or 6 00 and that means many people decide not to go to the polls which means they dont vote for governor state senator or City Council Members of all our elections are reported by this process especially on the west coast, the winner of the presidency which is what most people are interested in is decided three hours before the polls close. I dont know how you fix this problem. Why is this the way it is . The of lipitor college electoray it is because there were a lot of small states. What they did was allow each state have Congressional Districts and two senators and one of the outcomes of that, three and let durrell the votes, 6 ended thousand people per electorial vote. And 55 electoral votes, more population per element durrell vote. They did it for two reasons, one is to get the big states small state but also remember they were kind of elitist back then and didnt like trust the population. What they did was they said lets let this be decided in state legislatures where there are other elites like us. A whole idea of the Electoral College was there might be a vote but the state legislatures would really gillette which is why to this day you meet in the state capital around december 12th. Everybody meets and the state capital, they sign the affidavit and that is how we do it. They did it back then because they were afraid of the mob. They also if you remember the original constitution had u. S. Senators elected in state legislature and not by popular vote. The whole thing starts to break down in the election and 1824, Andrew Jackson dramatically changes all the assumptions about people and the role of the people. In all their wisdom where a little nervous about actual voters. [inaudible question] how Convention Delegates are joes in. Our Convention Delegates chosen . First of all as you know it is different from everything but generally there are two methods. Sometimes what happens is you have the primary and sometime later there will be conventions in the Congressional District and people will go to those conventions usually Party Activists and they will vote for individuals representing president ial candidates. Hillary clinton gets three delegates and Bernie Sanders gets three delegates in the first Congressional District in maryland, they dont have that many delegates but they will meet in a caucus and individuals go to the convention which is why Convention Participants still somewhat like the Old Convention in the pre reform era, they tend to the Party Activists elected officials. Sometimes they do this before the primary and potential delegates but the elegant Selection Process is generally a separate process from the delegate awarding process but the actual individuals are chosen at some other point. Iowa, New Hampshire had that momentum the influences other states but historically speaking has there been one state in particular that has reflected the election . In the primary process . Okay, not really. Mostly because it is republican and democratic. In the general election it has been all ohio all the time so ohio and florida in recent years have been the places to watch but in the primary system i cant say fat is the case. What does happen is states that are heavily democratic tend to get more delegates and likewise republicans tend to get more delegates so you waited like that. Thank you very much. You have been a great audience. [applause] thank you so much the lane for being here. If you would do us the favor of holding up your chairs a meaning that against bookcases when you get up and this register is open for business. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] you are watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and got his every weekend. Tv, television for serious readers. This weekend on booktv we are live with author and former fox news host eric burns. He will take your questions and discuss his many books from noon to 3 00 p. M. Eastern. On afterward the daily callers mad losers republicans to reach embrace conservative principles or run the risk of the partys demise. This weekend, report on the largest refugee camp in the world. Panel discussion on the life of librarian of Congress James billington, director of nationa