Sunday, February 14, 2016

From the Green Papers: HOW DID WE GET HERE, ANYWAY? an historical analysis of the Presidential Nominating Process.

A manageable, but thorough look at the process.

- Click here for it.

Here's a bit of it:

In the original Constitutional framework, the Electoral College itself was to be the presidential nominating body- the equivalent of today's National Conventions. Each Elector was to choose two men for President without having any idea as to how his individual ballot would affect the ultimate cumulative vote of the Electors as a whole. With the proviso that no more than one of the Elector's two choices could be from the same State as the Elector himself, the assumption was that the Elector's first choice would, most likely, be some "favorite son" from the Elector's own home state while his second choice would be forced to be some other notable from perhaps the same region but, by constitutional edict, from a different state. Clearly, the Framers considered it more than likely that the second choices of various Electors would ultimately determine the five "nominees" for the office from whom the House of Representatives, voting by State not as individuals, would pick the next President (for it is doubtful any of them entertained the notion that- except in the case of George Washington- the Electoral College would ever produce a majority of the electoral vote for any of the Electors' choices for President); it is equally as clear that the Framers also believed that they had come up with a system that would keep faction/party from becoming a factor in the election of a President. They, of course, were very wrong.