Are Primary Elections Ruining Democracy? (Encore)
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What is the central question about primary elections being debated in this episode?
This is Open to Debate. I'm John Donvan. Hi, everybody. The midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress for the coming two years will soon be upon us, with the stakes so high that the primary elections teeing up these races have been getting an unusual amount of attention this year. Those primaries so critical to what happens in the longer term, in fact, were not something the founders ever foresaw. They are not written into the Constitution. And there's long been disagreement about whether they are good or bad for our democracy. It's a question we debated a few years back and that we are revisiting in this episode. As you listen, you're going to hear some references to the 2016 and 2020 general elections and President Trump's first term.
That does not mean this debate around primaries as an institution is out of date. If anything, it is more current now than ever as we again bring you our debate on the question, are primary elections ruining democracy? Let's get to it. We have two guests to debate this question, each expert in how our elections work, each having given serious thought to this question. Elaine Kamark, who is at Brookings in the Harvard Kennedy School, and Jed Ober, former director of Democracy International, currently serving as chief of staff to a member of Congress. Both of our debaters have actually participated in primary elections themselves behind the scenes, taking part in committees and campaigns alike. So Elaine K. Mark and Jed Ober, thanks so much for joining us.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Thanks so much, John.
Appreciate it.
So to let people know who's a yes and who's a no on this question, let's just make this official. I'll let you go first, Elaine. On the question, are primary elections ruining democracy? Are you a yes or a no?
I'm a yes.
And Jed Ober, that makes you the oh, but let's make
it
official. Are you a yes or no? Are primary elections ruining democracy?
I am definitely a no, John, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.
All right. Well, let's get started and we'll go back to you, Elaine, because your yes is more challenging, I would say, to the status quo. So let's have you go first and tell us why you are arguing, yes, primary elections are ruining democracy.
Well, okay. This is a controversial position, I understand, and it is definitely not a mainstream position. The United States is the only country in the world that uses primaries exclusively to nominate their leaders. And the problem with using primaries, which in the United States we've only used for presidents exclusively since 1972— so it's relatively recent, is that we no longer have an element of peer review in our presidential nomination process. And peer review is a concept that is quite critical to every other profession, medicine, electricians, lawyers, every other profession. profession in the United States has some place where their peers say, yes, this person is competent, no, this person is not.
In European democracies, parliamentary democracies, mostly the leaders come from within a party conference. or some kind of closed system. And most of the people participating in that actually know something about the people that they are going to elect to lead their party. We have a completely different system. We have a system that has become a wide open system where anybody can run for president. Now, in the 23 years between 1945 and 1968, the only outsider that ran and he won was Dwight D. Eisenhower. And we call him an outsider because he hadn't been in political office before. He'd never held a political office. He did, however, win the war in Europe and command the Allied troops in Europe. He was a pretty big deal.
So that's an exception. Then in 1972, the United States underwent a quiet revolution, and we introduced what are binding primaries, which I'll talk about a little bit later. But since then, we've had a televangelist run for president, a TV communicator, a wealthy businessman, the CEO of Godfather Pizza. a spiritual leader, a CEO of a test preparation company, not to mention tons of movie stars and other celebrities getting into the mix or being taught about.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central question about primary elections being debated in this episode?
0:07–9:15
2
Why does Elaine Kamarck argue that primary elections are ruining democracy?
9:15–17:41
3
How does Jed Ober explain why primary elections are essential for democracy?
17:41–26:17
4
What historical examples illustrate the impact of primaries on presidential nominations?
26:17–33:37
5
How do low turnout and binding primaries contribute to the rise of extreme candidates?
33:37–39:20
6
What reforms do the guests propose to improve the primary system?
39:20–46:16
7
How do the debaters summarize their positions on the future of primaries?
46:16–48:37
8
What final thoughts and takeaways does the host leave listeners with?
48:37–50:33