Primaries
By Alex Magno
My own students in political science are a little confused about what is going on in American politics at the moment. They could quite grasp the exercise of party caucuses — or what the Americans call “primaries.”
The confusion, I think, begins from using our own electoral practices as reference point. Here, since the death of our party system 35 years ago, candidates simply throw their hats into the ring and expect a faction of loyal followers and a bunch of financiers to gather around presumptive (and often presumptuous) candidacies.
Since the death of the stable party system we once had, there has been no such thing as a candidate-selection process. Aspiring politicians do not have to work themselves up the party hierarchy. There is no systematic filtration process to vet candidates and hold them accountable to some party platform.
Instead of being loyal to their parties, our politicians expect their parties to be loyal to them. They herd in electoral investors, raise a war chest and dispense funds on their own. In exchange for helping finance the campaigns of local candidates aligned with them, “presidentiables” ( as we call them) expect a certain degree of feudal obligation from their barons. Read more...
By Alex Magno
My own students in political science are a little confused about what is going on in American politics at the moment. They could quite grasp the exercise of party caucuses — or what the Americans call “primaries.”
The confusion, I think, begins from using our own electoral practices as reference point. Here, since the death of our party system 35 years ago, candidates simply throw their hats into the ring and expect a faction of loyal followers and a bunch of financiers to gather around presumptive (and often presumptuous) candidacies.
Since the death of the stable party system we once had, there has been no such thing as a candidate-selection process. Aspiring politicians do not have to work themselves up the party hierarchy. There is no systematic filtration process to vet candidates and hold them accountable to some party platform.
Instead of being loyal to their parties, our politicians expect their parties to be loyal to them. They herd in electoral investors, raise a war chest and dispense funds on their own. In exchange for helping finance the campaigns of local candidates aligned with them, “presidentiables” ( as we call them) expect a certain degree of feudal obligation from their barons. Read more...
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