PENNSYLVANIA'S PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY: WILL IT MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
G. Terry Madonna, Center for Politics & Public Affairs, April, 1992.
April 28th is primary election day in Pennsylvania, and the state's voters will trudge to the polls, and, among other offices to be elected, pick delegates to the national nominating conventions. Four years ago in a commentary piece I raised a central issue regarding Pennsylvania's role in the presidential nominating process. Pennsylvania holds its election late in the primary season and has not been influential in either parties' selection process since 1976, when Jimmy Carter locked up the Democraatic nomination by winning the Pennsylvania primary.
But more important the state's voters have had virtually no choice in selecting from among the wide array of candidates who announce for the presidency and who appear on the ballots in those states holding early primaries. Put another way, Pennsylvanians have been effectively limited to two choices by the time their primary rolls around. The Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary limit the field of candidates and, in most instances, one of the two candidates remaining in the field after those processes are completed becomes a prohibitive favorite: Carter-Udall, Ford-Reagan in 1976; Carter-Kennedy, Reagan-Bush in 1980; and Mondale-Hart in 1984.
The 1988 presidential election had a similar result. After New Hampshire, and certainly after the Super Tuesday primaries, George Bush eliminated Bob Dole and the delegate selection process became little more than routine exercise in accumulating a delegate majority. Bush was left with no serious opponent in the Pennsylvania primary; he won with 78.8% of the Republican vote and captured all 59 delegates. The Democratic contest was similarly a non-event. The Pennsylvania vote largely ratified the course of the campaign set previously by Michael Dukakis' victories in earlier primaries. Dick Gepardt did not survive Super Tuesday and he was out of the contest by the end of March. Al Gore's loss in New York caused him to retire from the race, leaving Jesse Jackson to battle Dukakis for Pennsylvania's 178 delegate votes. Dukakis crushed Jackson winning more than 1 million votes to 000">400,000 for his opponent. Dukakis won 163 of the 178 contested votes in the Pennsylvania primary.
Then, too, it is also impossible to field a presidential candidate during the latter stages of the nominating process. In 1976, Frank Church and Jerry Brown entered late only to find it hopeless to compete successfully with the front-runners. No one can enter late and win. Candidates run early and hard or they don't run at all.
The major consequence for Pennsylvania of the current nomination system is to reduce the influece of the state's political leaders in the selection of presidential canndidates. Interestingly, there seems to be little motivation within the state to increase Pennsylvania's national power. This year, as opposed to 1988, no effort has been made to change the date of the state's primary from late to early april, 1992. In 1988, a bill to move Pennsylvania's primary from the fourth week to the first week of the month passed the state House. The earlier effort was part of the plan, hatched by big state Democratic leaders, to create an industrical state regional primary to rival Super Tuesday, and included New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. The plan never came to fruition, however.
There is considerable speculation that a rule's change in the Democratic nomination procedure will keep the campaign competitive for a longer period of time. In the past, the primary in Pennsylvania was essentially a "beauty contest" with the names of the presidential candidates appearing on the ballot statewide. Delegates pledged to the various candidates were selected out of congressional districts, completely separate from the voting for individual presidential candidates. In 1992, the preference vote will be binding and candidates will recieve delegates proportional to the number of primary votes they receive, at least if the presidential preference vote reaches a 15% threshold. Some observers believe this rule's change will keep the nomination struggle competitive for a longer period. But federal campaign finance laws make it difficult for candidates not doing well in the early primaries to raise campaign funds necessary to run effective campaigns later in the primary season. The significant effect of which is to force candidates to pour a disproportionate share of money as well as time and effort into early caucuses and primaries. Any candidate not doing well will find it hard to remain in the contest for very long. In fact, 34 states will select delegates before the Pennsylvania primary, and it is not likely that more than two candidates will remain in either parties' field, largely replicating the scenario of past presidential primaries and continuing Pennsylvania's marginal, if not insignificant, role in the nomination process.
