Out of Control? Hardly

In drafting the Constitution of the United States the framers were particularly careful not to entrust the election of the new President directly to the masses. That, Alexander Hamilton wrote, would be likely to lead to “tumult and disorder.” Rather, the citizens would choose learned electors who had the information and judgment needed to select a wise leader. This system would protect the Republic against the election of a President on the basis of “talents for low intrigue and the little arts of popularity.”

One wonders 200 years later what Hamilton would think of the carnival barker’s delight known as the 1988 presidential election campaign that currently is lurching from Iowa to New Hampshire to the Super Tuesday South and back again. Trying to guess would be idle speculation, for Hamilton might be just as amazed at the number of Americans now getting college degrees, amassing wealth, inventing things that were not imagined in 1788, and watching George Bush and Dan Rather go at it live on nationwide television. Or what about presidential candidates cuddling baby pigs in freezing barnyards in Iowa? Talk about the little arts of popularity!

We don’t need Hamilton. There are plenty of contemporary critics and self-proclaimed experts who believe that the system is out of control, that it does not result in the selection of the best people and in fact discourages the best people from even running. Many have asked (again) this year why the nation’s best are not elected President. But other perceived current ills include superficial television advertising, the manipulation of candidates by paid consultants and pollsters, pandering to special interests, and constant fund-raising and nonstop campaigning for months and even years before the first event of the nomination process--which, by the way, will end this evening in Iowa.

There is the complaint that the people are too directly involved in the party nominating process and that the old party pros should be brought back into the process. One fond, desperate hope of the critics this year--particularly the Democrats--is that the seven existing candidates will deadlock during the primary season and the nomination will be thrown into an open convention. Presumably the wise old pols will meet in some back room and decide who should be the candidate.

A lot of this criticism is nostalgic pap. The parties cannot go back to the old days of smoke-filled rooms where the kingpins hand-picked the candidate. Nor would most people want them to. The party structure is not dominant as it once was. With mass communications the people do not have to rely on the parties to translate and interpret candidates’ positions for them. They can do it for themselves. Bosses do not rule, or dictate. There are no real machines left with hacks telling people how to vote--or else.

The process is long, demanding and grueling on the candidates. The rules are confusing as they vary from state to state. Theoretically the national parties could make the primary process shorter and simpler. But that would not necessarily inhibit the candidates from running as early as they wanted to. Nor would it likely entice the now-reluctant leaders out onto the campaign trail. People who want to run for President will do so. People who don’t, won’t. In a recent issue of Newsweek, columnist George F. Will noted that Oxford professor James Bryce wrote about “Why Great Men Are Not Chosen Presidents.” That was in 1888. The berated reforms in the nomination process seem in fact to have had very little to do with a leader’s inclination to run or not to run.

Besides, Will notes that since 1888 the frequency of presidential greatness is pretty good. “Why are great men not chosen?” Will asked. “They frequently have been. Will the future be like the past? We should be so lucky.”

Continued reform of the presidential selection process should not be abandoned. But first the people have to be presented with an alternative that will work better.