Politics of Presidential Selection

What Do We (Think We) Know about the Politics of Presidential Selection?

For this issue of The Forum, the Editors asked an array of political scientists, not so much to predict the outcome of the 2008 nominating contests—though we did invite everyone to take a flyer on that one—but to set out what we think we now know about the politics of presidential selection, that is, the fundamentals of this politics that are now more or less invariant.

In pursuit of this topic, Peverill Squire returns to the full chronicle of the Iowa caucuses, in what is part defense, part eulogy. William Mayer applies two bedrock indicators, the absolutely most regular behavioral patterns of the last thirty years, to the contest of 2008. Marty Cohen, David Karol, Hans Noel, and John Zaller argue that there is a different fundamental regularity, one reliably overlooked by both scholars and analysts, in the way that the political parties have resumed control over the selection of their nominees. Alan Abramowitz turns to the place of a growing ideological polarization within the electorate for presidential primaries—and castigates scholars for blaming it on candidates or activists rather than the general public. Costas Panagopoulus asks whether the national party conventions still contribute anything to all of this. Joel Rivlin finds a powerful underlying rhythm to the political advertising associated with all the major campaigns, one that should only grow in 2008. And Bruce Altschuler argues that the end result is a process so flawed that it needs to be swept away and replaced with a national primary.

Irving Louis Horowitz then addresses the role of American politics in European integration—or as much, the risks in having no role—most especially at the point when all the major players must grapple with the place of Turkey in this evolution. And in the book review section, Kenneth Baer and Elaine Kamarck tackle Bruce Miroff’s reflections on the ‘McGovern moment’ and fall into a spirited debate with the author about how it should be understood.