Enduring Controversies in Presidential Nominating Politics - Softcover

"Want to know how we got into this mess? Read this book. Want to know how we can get out of this mess? Read this book. It's full of colorful reminiscences, shrewd insights, and boisterous disagreements. The whole political mess." - Bill Schneider, senior political analyst, CNN; "An entertaining and informative framework for the discussion of methods for nominating presidents from the beginning of the republic onward." - Nelson W. Polsby, University of California, Berkeley; "In or out of the academic world, Emmett Buell and William Mayer are two of the best people writing today about the presidential nominating process. Their latest collaboration is a unique collection of commentary and writings on its evolution." - Rhodes Cook, author of Race for the Presidency"

The process of nominating and electing a president is a spectacle that never falls to engage and excite millions of Americans - and rarely falls to enrage us, as well. Enduring Controversies in Presidential Nominating Politics retraces the more than two hundred-year history of presidential elections in the United States to provide a primer on how the process has evolved from the days of the founders, through the heyday of nominating conventions, to today's overwhelming interest in early primaries. Original essays by the editors introduce, critique, and occasionally even refute a wide variety of historical readings including Alexander Hamilton's defense of election procedures, excerpts of individual states' nominations of candidates in 1824, an overview of the impact television has had on nominating conventions, and calls for a national rotating primary scheme in 2004. As a whole, the collection reveals the common threads that run through the history of the nominating process, and points out that today's litany of complaints are not at all new.