Historians Discuss the '08 Presidential Primaries

Beverly?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, New Hampshire has a somewhat better track record than Iowa does, and certainly if you take Iowa and you take New Hampshire, your odds are pretty good that you are going to become your party's nominee. But, even in New Hampshire, we've seen any number of cases where the winner in New Hampshire, a viable candidate -- even -- right? -- John McCain himself, in 2000, won the New Hampshire primary; of course, he did not go on to get the nomination, and we've seen it on the Democratic side, as well. 1992, Tsongas wins, Clinton come in second, but it's Clinton that gets the big victory, in some sense, out of New Hampshire, and, of course, goes on to get the nomination.

And I think that this feeds into something that is really the key about these early caucuses, these early primaries -- is that, to some degree, it's not so much a matter of winning and losing, but of whether or not you meet expectations -- almost like quarterly reports on the stock market, right? -- I mean, whether or not you've met the expectations that people have had for you, whether you get momentum coming out of that.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And that's the problem with even looking at these and saying, you know, what they do in history, because history doesn't tell us too much, because the process this year is so different. As Beverly was saying, Bill Clinton won New -- or came in second in New Hampshire, seemed to have a strong showing, but it still took him months to lock up the nomination. Now we're in this process -- it's about 4 weeks -- so, you know, we're essentially inventing a process as we go along.

RAY SUAREZ: Danny Blas rights, from San Diego, California, "As a Californian, I feel, as many of my friends do, that my state is somewhat voiceless during the primary season and selecting each party's candidate. Iowa and New Hampshire have more influence than the largest state in the union. If California was the first primary state, to what degree would it change the selection of the candidate, and how different would it appear? Do the primaries of later, larger states actually have an impact?"

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: May I --

RAY SUAREZ: Michael?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: -- start?

RAY SUAREZ: Yeah.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think our writer should feel better this year, because one reason why California was moved up to the 5th of February from where it used to be, which was late in the season, sometimes as late as June, is to give it a much greater impact. And I think our writer will see that in 4 weeks.

The downside of having California first is, that's a state where there is very little retail politics of the kind that we've seen in Iowa and New Hampshire, very much dependent on who raises the most money, who can put on commercials. And I'm not sure that's the best thing for the first test in the season.

BEVERLY GAGE: I'd agree with Michael that the advantage of these early states, like Iowa and New Hampshire, which are -- as many people have noted, they're unrepresentative states, they're small states, but they do have a kind of personal door-to-door politics and a door-to-door political culture that's developed over the past few decades that you probably wouldn't get in a place like California.

On the other hand, there are really important questions to be asked as the primary system keeps changing. Right? This is something that was cobbled together from the first, and has now become this, sort of, competitive race between states, and it really seems like 2008 is a moment to take that step back to look at the system as a whole and to ask whose needs are being served, whose needs are not being served. And I think there's a good case that, for a state like California or New York, some of those needs, maybe, aren't being served.

This year, we'll have something -- the -- probably the closest thing we've ever had to a national primary, and we'll just see how that turns out.

RAY SUAREZ: You know, Michael, your point about retail politics is one that's often sounded every 4 years as people talk about the wisdom of kicking off in Iowa and New Hampshire.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Uh-huh.

RAY SUAREZ: But, this time around, we also saw tens of millions of dollars being spent in Iowa and New Hampshire, and a little less emphasis on that diner-based campaign.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think that's right, but you're still making these candidates go from door to door and explain themselves. If you had a national primary, that wouldn't be possible. And, I think, if I were designing it, I would say, if you're going to have Iowa and New Hampshire first, as we do, and have them 5 days apart, as we do, consider them important first tests, but don't use them to lock in nominations on both sides. And if you look at what's happened this year, fortunately that has not happened. People have said, "Well, Iowa tells us something, New Hampshire tells us something, but it's not yet over."

RAY SUAREZ: Margaret Kittelson writes, from Bloomington, Minn., "I thought the discussion on our primary system's faults was interesting, that the initial elimination process in Iowa and New Hampshire allows small representations of minorities and citizens in large cities. Do you view a national primary election day to be beneficial? I would so welcome the opportunity to vote for my first-, second-, and third-choice candidates. Is there, in this country, any move toward a national primary? Are there negatives that need to be considered?"

Beverly?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, there are moves toward a national primary, or at least there are proposals out there. I haven't seen much evidence at all that these proposals are being take incredibly seriously by the parties; and certainly places like Iowa and New Hampshire would put up a big fight against that. There are also other proposals out there for rotating primaries, for regional primaries.

But there is a sense, and a move, I think, at this point, toward attempting to rationalize the system in some way. But I'd also add that I think one of the greatest problems at the moment is not so much the early primaries or the front-loaded election calendar, but the fact that the media began this much, much, much earlier than any voter. And so that even by the time you get to Iowa, the media has already gone through a lot of this process, they've ruled certain people in, they've ruled others out, and all of that has happened before there's been a single caucus or a primary.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I agree with Beverly, but that's a product of this awful system that we've got, because everyone knew that this was going to go, probably, from January 3rd, Iowa, to, probably, February 5, Super Tuesday, you know, basically, you know, 4 and a half weeks. That's the reason why all -- that there was so much attention in 2007, and why it seems that this campaign has already gone on forever. If you front-load it and compress it that much and, basically -- rather than doing what we used to do in this system, which was, have a process that took about 4 or 5 months, see how people react to their victories and losses in different kinds of tests -- caucuses, state conventions, and primaries -- and say, that tells us a lot about candidates.

Instead, what's happened is that this has been pushed into the year before the election year -- 2007 -- and a lot of this took place, in terms of raising money and, you know, debates on TV, with about eight people uttering 2-minute sound bites. That's the downside of the process that we've come to.

And, on a national primary, I dearly hope it does not ever happen. I mean, for a primary to be basically held in one day, that's basically going to be governed by money, name ID; you're going to have a very hard time prying candidates out of the TV studios, because that's what's going to have an impact. You're not going to have a system in which someone is compelled to go to Iowa and New Hampshire and learn certain things that they otherwise would not have.

John Kennedy, for instance, in 1960, had to campaign in the West Virginia primary. He said, later on, "It's the first time I met poor people. I became a lot more sensitive to certain issues than I ever was before." It was a very big educational process.

The other downside is, if you have a national primary, what if, God forbid, there's a terrorist event two days before, or someone puts out some slimy piece of information about one of the candidates 48 hours before, without the time to absorb it? When you've got it all happening on one day, you're a lot more vulnerable to a bad decision.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, as we talk about the way it used to be, with candidates unfolding before the electorate over a 4- or a 5-month process, is there a person who became President who wouldn't have become President if it was a 4-and-a-half-week-long campaign? I -- off the top of my head, I think about the campaigns of Gary Hart and Jerry Brown and Teddy Kennedy, who challenged either favored candidates or incumbents, and actually, because of the length of the campaign, were able to score some interesting and impressive victories, but none of them ever became the nominee. Looking back over the 40 years or so of the modern process, is there somebody, because they had that lengthy calendar to make their case, eventually became President?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, I'd say the best candidate in that regard is probably Bill Clinton. You know, Clinton was not someone who did terribly well in these early primaries, but -- and we may see this reflected this year, as well -- but was able, as his momentum grew, as he came in second in New Hampshire, did better than expected, to establish a narrative of his comeback, his fight. And there were a lot of factors, obviously, that led to his eventual nomination. But had it been such a short calendar, I'm not sure that narrative would have had as much time to play out.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And Ronald Reagan, in 1980, lost the Iowa caucus, largely because he was thought to be over the hill, not up to being President. The fact that he was able to show discipline and energy over about a 4-month period set those doubts aside.

But, you know, the other thing is that there is something unique in a -- in a democracy, and especially the American democracy, about watching the way that people react to defeat and the way that they react to victory. For instance, you know, just look at Hillary Clinton during the last week, the way that she reacted to the possibility, last weekend, that she was going to lose this nomination. I think it caused her to mature and grow, and we certainly saw sides of her that we had never seen before.

There's a difference between watching someone, you know, as they're in packaged debates on cable TV versus the way they react to the possibility of imminent defeat. It shows us things that we really need to know about these candidates before we make a choice.

Beverly?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, clearly they all just have to be watching the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and then, you know, we wouldn't -- we wouldn't have this problem.

[Laughter.]

BEVERLY GAGE: No, I certainly think that the -- Ray -- the 30-second ad that is a vicious attack ad is not a particularly productive way to go about having a citizen-based discussion, but it's also not unique to television, it's also something that's been part of politics for a long time. So, I don't know how much we can really lay all of this at the hand of television.

It is true, however -- and I think this is one of the things that's so intriguing about Iowa and New Hampshire -- it is true that it is a different experience to talk with a candidate, to see a candidate, to shake their hand, to be in the same room, to be part of a movement on the ground. It's just a radically different experience than simply sitting in your living room watching television.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: And I think anyone who might have, earlier, worried about money being spent on television to lock up a nomination -- yes, that is probably not the greatest influence, but now there are all sorts of alternatives with the Internet. You know, you cannot monopolize the channels of communication.

And the other thing is that someone who spends an awful lot of money on negative campaigning -- it can often have the opposite effect. Take a look at Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt in the Iowa caucuses of 2004. They essentially destroyed each other in their commercials on TV, and Iowans said, "We don't like either of them," and they gave their blessing to John Kerry.

RAY SUAREZ: Ardouin Pierre writes, from Pornichet, France, "Do you think the United States is ready to vote for a black person for President after the dramatic Obama victory in Iowa?"

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: I think so. And I hope those who worry that there were a lot of New Hampshire voters who told pollsters that they were voting for Obama, and decided, in the end, not to vote for him because of reservations about that -- I hope that that analysis does not turn out to be true.

RAY SUAREZ: Beverly, what do you think?

BEVERLY GAGE: I think so. I would certainly like to hope so. I mean, one of the things that is interesting about Obama as a candidate is the way in which he, kind of, plays off of this and then also plays against it, seeking to be, you know, not only a post-partisan candidate, but a post-racial candidate. And I would like to think that that would have some power. I'm not sure it entirely reflects many people's lived experience on the ground. I don't think on the ground we're a post-race country yet.

RAY SUAREZ: Jonathan Ames writes, from Richford, N.Y., "Gender matters are not always deemed appropriate as campaign fodder, yet, on some level, might the public fear further intrusions of sensational tabloid media on civic life be Hillary Clinton's most pernicious, albeit unexpressed, negative? Might she have done better to express and transcend it and leave it -- leave him off camera" -- I guess by "him," he means President Clinton -- "to open the baggage, resolve some of the discomfort? Have sexual politics been played out in campaigns with male presidential candidates in the past?"

Beverly?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well, one thing that --

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Twenty-five words or less, Beverly.

BEVERLY GAGE: Yes.

[Laughter.]

BEVERLY GAGE: Well -- hmmm. One thing that I -- that I do find problematic about the way in which gender and sex are treated in this campaign is that it is assumed that women will vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a woman, or that African Americans will vote for Barack Obama because he is African American, but there's very little analysis about the idea that men might be voting for -- white men might vote for a white man because he's a white man. It never seems to quite be framed in that way.

So, I think there are certainly problems with the press coverage around these issues. And I do think that it is inescapable, Hillary Clinton comes with a lot of past, and when we vote for her, she's going to bring that with her, you know, when-if whoever does vote for her, that's just an inescapable part of her candidacy. I'm not sure if it is the end of her candidacy, if it is a valuable part of her candidacy. And I think she's actually dealt with the role of her husband fairly well in the campaign. He's been very self-conscious about, kind of, being in the background, but being President, and I just don't think they're going to find a magic formula that solves all of these questions for them.

BEVERLY GAGE: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: -- during an encounter with a voter the other night.

BEVERLY GAGE: Right.

RAY SUAREZ: Too much made about that? Was it -- was it as telling a moment as 24-hour cable news would have you believe?

BEVERLY GAGE: Absolutely too much made about that, frankly, I think --

[Laughter.]

BEVERLY GAGE: -- particularly the debate about whether it was staged or not staged. That seemed -- that seemed not terribly productive. It did seem to be the product of a 24-hour news cycle, where you had the election underway, you didn't have immediate results to be reporting, and so, here was a moment to focus on.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Okay. And what if you had a national primary and the whole thing turned on one moment like that?

BEVERLY GAGE: Well -- but you could say the same thing of -- we do actually have a national election for the presidency, right?

[Laughter.]

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: They do, but at least in the -- a national election, you've gone through a year where people have watched these candidates, so it's a little bit more factored in when it's at the end of the process rather than the beginning.

BEVERLY GAGE: It's true.

RAY SUAREZ: Michael, Earline Ham writes, from Macon, Georgia, "I think the really substantial Democratic candidates were Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd. I can't help but feel that Iowans -- now all of us Democrats -- have traded reality for playtime. I'd like to know what the historians think happened with the Biden and Dodd campaigns, which, of course, didn't even make it to New Hampshire."

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: What happened was that you, for better or worse, got a process this year that essentially required candidates, at least on the Democratic side, to have $100 million to show their seriousness, and, if they didn't have it, they were not going to be as well covered. And that was proven in the case of Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. And, in both of their cases, they would probably wish for the old system -- of 50 years ago, plus -- because, as Senators who are more senior than Obama and Clinton, they would have done much better in that kind of a process.

RAY SUAREZ: Beverly?

BEVERLY GAGE: Yes, I would tend to agree with Michael.

RAY SUAREZ: It was interesting that they spent money, they spent time, they both complained about lack of coverage, but, certain in the -- certainly in the candidate forums and in local media in Iowa, they got their moments in the sun, and they just didn't get much traction.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: They got moments in the sun; but, even in the transcripts of these debates, they were referred to as second-tier candidates.

BEVERLY GAGE: Uh-huh.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS:  When they spoke, people, in many cases, resented that they were interfering with the interchange, you know, among the three presumed frontrunners. I mean, to take Senators who have had great Senate records, and basically treat them like second-class citizens, you know, aside from, you know, what it means for this system, it's a pretty undignified thing.

BEVERLY GAGE: Yeah. And I would say it's also not just Biden and Dodd, but I think Edwards has suffered from this. He's always been considered in that -- in that first tier, but, if you looked at the election coverage the morning after Iowa, the stories were all about Obama beating Clinton, Clinton beating Obama, would she come back, would he go on to victory. And the fact that there was this other person who --

RAY SUAREZ: Who actually finished second.

BEVERLY GAGE: Exactly.

RAY SUAREZ: Who actually finished ahead of Hillary Clinton.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Right.

BEVERLY GAGE: Exactly. He, kind of, got lost in that narrative.

RAY SUAREZ: And perhaps suffered for that, last night.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: May well have.

RAY SUAREZ: We have a question from Victoria, B.C., Paul Washington writes, "For either party, is there any chance the nomination will not be sown up by the primaries and before the conventions? In Canada, we still have lots of drama as convention voting for the party leader can go three, four, or more ballots."

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Hasn't happened since 1952, and is unlikely to happen this year with this frontloaded process; although, if it were to happen, it's more likely to happen on the Republican side, because it looks as if -- you know, if Iowa and New Hampshire are any guide, you may have test after test, each with a different winner, and, if that prevails on the 5th of February and everything is divided up, it's at least possible that this might happen this year.