Wendell they learn?

Washington Monthly, May, 2006 by Charles Peters

Democrats are threatening to add four more early primaries and caucuses to compete with Iowa and New Hampshire. This strikes me as madness. We're already selecting political nominees too fast. By the first of April, the winner has emerged. The most notable illustration of why this is not a good idea is that the candidate who turned out to be the Republicans' best man in 1940 was at 0 percent in the polls on April 1. Wendell Willkie had not entered any primary. But by the day convention delegates voted, June 27, he had become not only the choice of the delegates but, according to a Gallup poll, of a majority of Republican voters as well. By that time, thorough scrutiny had revealed how unsuitable for the challenges of the time were the two Republicans leaders as of April 1, Tom Dewey and Robert Taft, who were then isolationists and would never have provided the support Willkie gave FDR for the draft and for the aid to Britain--support that proved critical to our victory in World War II.

This is why I've come to believe that we should leave the nomination to convention delegates as it was before 1972. To be sure, there was a good argument for reform back then, in that state delegations were often selected and controlled by political bosses. The way to avoid that problem is to require the delegates be selected democratically, but without a binding commitment to any candidate. That way, they would not be controlled by bosses and would still be free to choose the best man right up to the moment the convention votes.