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| Originally Aired: February 5, 2008 |
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Historians Reflect on Super Tuesday's Evolving Role |
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| The American presidential nomination process has taken many twists and turns in the nation's history, and this year's prominence of the Feb. 5 voting contests represents its latest turn. Historians discuss Super Tuesday's origins and its implications for the presidency. |
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JIM LEHRER: And next to Ray Suarez for a Super Tuesday history story. RAY SUAREZ: And for that, we turn to our presidential historian regulars, Michael Beschloss and Richard Norton Smith, scholar in residence at George Mason University, and we're also joined by Beverly Gage, assistant professor of American history at Yale University. Michael, when did the idea of a Super Tuesday, a big primary early in the season, get started? MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Well, by the 1980s, Democrats were worried that there weren't enough things that represented African-Americans in the process, so they thought one way of doing this is to have a Super Tuesday with a lot of southern states, black voters within the Democratic Party. But the other impulse was very different. The Democratic establishment worried that these Democratic nominations were going to insurgents like George McGovern, Jimmy Carter. So why not have a big Super Tuesday with a lot of states on one day that would favor someone who was well-financed, nationally known, well-organized? Of course, it hasn't always worked out that way. RAY SUAREZ: But white southern Democrats, more conservative Democrats, were also feeling a little left out, weren't they, by the frontloading of Iowa and New Hampshire? MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely, and so as a way of sort of getting some geographical balance in the process. But, you know, the irony is that things don't always turn out the way that you expect them to. And looking at it this year, this was something that was almost perfectly designed for a Hillary Clinton, assuming that no one could raise money or organize on the scale that she has been able to do. Of course, that was forgetting the possibility that you could have a Barack Obama. |
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2008 biggest Tuesday yet
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Gage, once you've had a Super Tuesday -- and in the early ones, 14 or so states going all at once -- what forces inside our politics were pushing it to become bigger and now even a month earlier than it was in the '80s and '90s?BEVERLY GAGE, Yale University: Right. There are a couple of things that separate this Super Tuesday from Super Tuesdays that have come before. One is that it is in February and not in March, so we've got, again, this front-loaded calendar. And the other is that it's so much bigger than any Super Tuesday that we've seen up to this point. We're calling it "Super Duper Tuesday." There are all sorts of names out there. And I think there are a couple of things that have been pushing it that way. I mean, one is simply the scramble between different states to make their voices heard. And so there's this kind of competitive nature to the primary process where everybody is trying to get on board. The other is really that the media has favored the person who comes out early, comes out in these big contests, and so it's something of a media show, as well. RAY SUAREZ: Richard, did the... RICHARD NORTON SMITH, George Mason University: By the way, I am not calling it "Super Duper Tuesday." Anyone who does... BEVERLY GAGE: Not dignified. RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Let me make that clear right up front. RAY SUAREZ: Did the effort to neutralize some of the early power of Iowa and New Hampshire, which some people said was the impulse for Super Tuesday, did it actually work that way? Did it take some of the emphasis on Iowa away? RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, Michael's absolutely right, and the law of unintended consequences tends to kick in. If you look at 1988, which most people regard as the first Super Tuesday, he's absolutely right. The desire was to include not only African-Americans, but also white southerners at a time -- remember, Ronald Reagan's popularity was at its peak. The Democrats have lost two elections, so offset, dilute the sort of liberal leanings of the early states. So who did they nominate that year? Who won on Super Tuesday? Michael Dukakis. On the other hand, four years later, it worked perfectly. We forget today that Bill Clinton really didn't compete in Iowa, and he came in second in New Hampshire. And yet he really recovered on Super Tuesday. And that really was the making of his candidacy. So whatever you expect as a result of careful, calibrated reasoning, the odds are you may very well get the opposite. |
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Michael Beschloss
Presidential Historian |
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 The downside of this is that when you have essentially sort of a semi-national primary, you're screening out almost anyone who cannot raise $100 million before the election year. That may not be the best thing for choosing a president. |
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Front-loading pushes early choice
RAY SUAREZ: Well, Bill Clinton did get the nomination, but the other big winner that day, if I recall, was Bob Dole, and he didn't.RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Well, you have to go -- now, '96. RAY SUAREZ: In '92, I think. RICHARD NORTON SMITH: No, because George Bush was -- George Bush was running for re-election. RAY SUAREZ: Oh, excuse me. Excuse me. RICHARD NORTON SMITH: But, no, you're right. In '88, that's a good point, because Dole had come roaring out of Iowa. For about four days, he thought he was going to be president of the United States, lost in New Hampshire and then, of course, went on to Super Tuesday. And that's where the first George Bush nailed it down. But the Republicans, as we talk about, they tend to be a much more hierarchical, orderly party, until, of course, this year. RAY SUAREZ: Well, do the parties, Michael, the professionals, the fundraisers, have an interest in anointing a leader early? MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Totally. RAY SUAREZ: And crowning frontrunners? MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Totally. RAY SUAREZ: Why? MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Because they make money off the process. So, therefore, if you've got something like Super Tuesday, with 22, 24 states, that's basically TV, money spent on TV, organization, all sorts of other things. Consultants, professional politicians benefit from that. And the downside of this is that when you have essentially sort of a semi-national primary, you're screening out almost anyone who cannot raise $100 million before the election year. That may not be the best thing for choosing a president. |
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Beverly Gage
Yale University |
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| I think you've got really a competitive process at work that is almost impossible to stop in its tracks unless, you know, there's a convention and the process itself is changed almost from the top down. |
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Primary system cobbled together
RAY SUAREZ: Professor Gage, there was an attempt in both parties to try to slow this train down so that everybody wouldn't go as early as is happening now, but it didn't work.What are some of the things that are keeping the pressure in the pipe to push it, as happened during the '80s and '90s, so early, with so much emphasis on big states now? BEVERLY GAGE: Well, the thing about the primary system is that nobody actually set out and said, "OK, let's design a system that's going to be totally rational. And we're going to, you know, sit down, figure this all out ahead of time." It sort of gets cobbled together each time. And so what you've seen more and more is this race for influence, the push by different states, right? You have Iowa and New Hampshire. Southern states feel left out. They make their move, as they did in the 1980s, to have some more influence. Then you see, "OK, well, why should the big states be left out?" Big states make their move to come in, as well. And then what happens to our regional diversity? So western states and others come in, as well. And so I think you've got really a competitive process at work that is almost impossible to stop in its tracks unless, you know, there's a convention and the process itself is changed almost from the top down. RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Or a train wreck. BEVERLY GAGE: Or a train wreck. RICHARD NORTON SMITH: Which, you know, is usually what precedes significant reform. One prediction, and that is I don't know whether people will take a second look at Super Tuesday after this. One thing I suspect the Democrats may take a look at, though, is proportional representation, which is another reform they wrote into the books in the 1970s and, up until now, it's worked. It's never burned them. But because of the fact that you can get 40 percent of the vote, 41 percent, I guess, in most states, and get a significant number of delegates, that tends to prolong the campaign and with all the divisiveness and everything else that this whole system was set up to eliminate. |
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Richard Norton Smith
George Mason University |
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| The McGovern Commission was created so that the rules were rewritten to make the Democratic process democratic, to make it more representative, more inclusive, and ultimately a certain element of chaos.
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Pressure may mount for wide primary
RAY SUAREZ: Well, the Republicans are largely winner-take-all. Does it change the way we have seen candidates run for president in the years that states have been moving toward this system and parties have been moving toward this system?MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: No question, because one thing we've even seen today in the last few weeks is that candidates are making their decisions not on the basis of the state, but a congressional district where they can have some chance of winning a number of delegates. We wouldn't see that if, for instance, California were winner-take-all for both parties the way it used to be. But, you know, the other thing is that this may lead in the other direction we've been talking about, and that is to a national primary, 50 states, or maybe four regional primaries, which I think would be absolutely atrocious, because one of the nice things about this system is it forces a candidate to go to Iowa and learn about their problems and to New Hampshire or smaller states. You've got four big semi-national primaries, this is going to be money, people in TV studios, tyranny of the majority, not much of an effort by these candidates to learn too much. RAY SUAREZ: Well, so we've Michael Beschloss's brief against tarmac politics. But what was pushing the Democrats to open the primary in this way, increase the number of primaries, increase the number of delegates, and increase the diversity of the results? RICHARD NORTON SMITH: You go back to 1968, when they had this tumultuous convention on national television, and the party tore itself apart. And coming out of the '60s when the country tore itself apart, a whole lot of people were brought in from the margins, people who'd been left out of the political process. And so the McGovern Commission was created so that the rules were rewritten to make the Democratic process democratic, to make it more representative, more inclusive, and ultimately a certain element of chaos. RAY SUAREZ: Richard Norton Smith, Michael Beschloss, Beverly Gage, thank you all.
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Historians Reflect on Super Tuesday's Evolving Role |
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