Politics 88 : States Play by Different Rules to Name Convention Delegates

There is no truth to the rumor that the same people who make out airline fare schedules and devise the formula to pick NFL wild card playoff teams also dreamed up the rules for this year’s presidential primaries and caucuses.

It just seems that way.

Republicans and Democrats have been wooed by candidates for months, and Monday night’s caucuses here launch a new phase in the courtship as voters across the country quit flirting and start cozying up to whomever they want to get serious with.

But democracy, like dating, is never quite as simple as the how-to manuals say it is supposed to be, and the hunt for the perfect party standard-bearer is no exception. The object is to pick delegates to the national nominating conventions next summer--4,160 for the Democrats who go to Atlanta in July, and 2,277 for the Republicans who meet in New Orleans the next month. Virtually every state, however, has a different wrinkle on how that is done and often the two parties in the same state operate under totally different rules.

Quick Judgments Difficult

Idiosyncrasies inherent in some state and party procedures make it difficult to make on-the-spot judgments about who won and who lost--though, of course, that will not stop the press and the political pundits from trying.

In Iowa, for example, the caucus sessions that begin at 7 p.m. at nearly 2,500 precinct meeting spots represent only the start of a lengthy winnowing process of local, county, congressional-district and state meetings of party activists. It will be June 25 before Iowa’s delegate slates of 58 Democrats and 37 Republicans are finally stitched together.

Republicans at the caucuses get to mark their choices on a secret ballot. But on the Democratic side, there will be nothing even approaching the popular, private style of voting that most Americans associate with elections. Instead, it will more resemble children’s games like red rover, red rover or musical chairs, as caucus-goers meet to decide, technically, who will represent the precinct at later countywide conventions.

Huddles for Candidates

The group splits like amoebas into huddles favoring one presidential candidate or another--say the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s people meet by the water cooler, Illinois Sen. Paul Simon’s folk by the kitchen door and Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt’s supporters in front of the men’s washroom.

They then spend part of the evening trying to browbeat or sweet-talk members of competing groups over to their side, sometimes with promises, sometimes with arguments and sometimes with an extra helping of fudge or cookies brought in by a partisan culinary crew. Under the rules, if preference groups get too small they must disband and be eliminated from the final count. When that tally is taken, county convention representatives are apportioned according to a mathematical formula applied to the size of each remaining group.

Even that is a considerable oversimplification of a process so intricate that Democratic officials have put together a series of live and televised caucus-training seminars around the state. “I’ve learned when you explain the rules of this process it’s good to remain fairly mobile and close to the door,” joked J. P. Stephen, the party’s caucus director, as he began one such session not long ago.

Most Do Not Understand

Despite that educational effort, party leaders admit that most participants will not understand what is going on and will be at the mercy of the caucus chairman. “When you go to a caucus, you don’t need to know anything,” said Bonnie Campbell, the state Democratic chairwoman. “There’s someone who understands the rules. . . . The average caucus attendee just needs to know who he supports.”

Confused? It gets worse.

Over the next several months, some states will hold non-binding “beauty contest” primaries, in which victories can translate into media attention and momentum for contenders but will not necessarily net them any cold, hard delegates.

In other states, Republicans mete out their delegates on variations of a winner-take-all theme, with the biggest prize in the June 7 California primary, where the top vote-getter gets to claim every delegate from the state that has more than any other--about 15% of the number he would need to win the nomination.

Democrats tend to favor what they call “proportional representation,” doling out delegates roughly in proportion to the size of the vote for each candidate. Party leaders say that ensures that minority points of view will be represented at the national convention, and almost everybody gets to come away from a primary or caucus with a little something in the way of delegates to show for their troubles.

‘Bonus,’ ‘Super’ Delegates

In addition to picking regular delegates, Democrats in some states also will allocate an extra dollop of “bonus delegates” for the candidates who run especially strong, and “super delegates”--a nominally uncommitted block of party officials and Democratic officeholders. And, in Maryland and a handful of other states, Democratic voters must pick delegates not only on the basis of their candidate preference, but also on their sex. Party rules there require convention delegations to be evenly split between men and women.

Just to further cloud the picture, even though most delegates pledge themselves to one candidate or another, many are free to change their minds and vote for somebody else come convention time.

Iowa and New Hampshire, the two most important early battlegrounds, represent opposite ends of this quirky electoral spectrum. Contrasted with the Iowa system, the Democratic and Republican halves of the Feb. 16 New Hampshire primary are straightforward.

A voter simply goes to the polls and marks his ballot for the presidential contender of his choice. Most of the national nominating delegates are then selected from pre-filed slates in proportion to the share of a candidate’s popular vote.

At least 38 states opt for some variation of the primary system, though the rules are not always as clear-cut as in New Hampshire. For example, Florida, one of the big prizes in the March 8 round of Super Tuesday contests in the South, will hold a preference primary. But convention delegates will actually be selected later by party caucuses under formulas designed to reflect the primary results.

Winner-Take-All System

Democrats in Florida ration delegates in proportion to the primary vote but give bonus delegates to candidates who top the vote in each congressional district. Republicans use a two-tiered winner-take-all system, with congressional district winners netting all of a district’s national delegates. Meanwhile, the top vote-getter statewide is assigned another helping of at-large delegates.

For sheer lunacy, of course, there is the situation in Michigan, where the Republican Party thought it had devised a sure-fire caucus and convention system guaranteed to give that state a head start on the national nominating process and win Michigan Republicans more influence and publicity.

Unfortunately, the process, which began way back in August, 1986, proved so intricate and arcane that even party leaders had a hard time deciphering it. The campaigns of Vice President George Bush, former television evangelist Pat Robertson and New York Rep. Jack Kemp ended up in court fighting over the rules and could send competing delegations to New Orleans to battle for credentials.

THE EARLY BATTLEGROUNDS Caucuses and primaries occurring before “Super Tuesday,” March 8, 1988

State Date Party Delegates (% of total) Michigan Caucuses Jan. 29-30 R 77 (3.4%) Hawaii Caucuses Feb. 4 R 20 (0.9) Iowa Caucuses Feb. 8 D 58 (1.4%) R 37 (1.6%) New Hampshire Primary Feb. 16 D 22 (0.5%) R 23 (1.0%) South Dakata Primary Feb.23 D 19 (0.5%) R 18 (0.8%) Minnesota Caucuses Feb. 23 D 86 (2.1%) R 31 (1.4%) Maine Caucuses Feb. 26-28 R 22 (1.0%) Caucuses Feb. 28 D 27 (0.6%) Vermont Primary March 1 D 19 (0.5%) R 17 (0.4%) South Carolina Primary March 5 D 48 (1.2%) R 37 (1.6%) Wyoming Caucus March 5 D 18 (0.4%) R 18 (0.8%) Kansas Caucus March 5 R 34 (1.5%)