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There is no provision for the role of political parties in the US Constitution: founding fathers could not anticipate the role as political parties did not develop until the early 19th century. While the influence of political parties was growing, this was yet another challenge to the development of American democracy: how to maintain transparency of parties’ positions and actions, how to prevent the separation of party authority from party members. In particular, the challenge was, and is, the mechanism of presidential candidates nomination. Before 1820, Democratic and Republican members of Congress would nominate a single candidate from their party. That system collapsed in 1824, and by 1832 the preferred mechanism for nomination was a national convention. With the population growth, city population of early 20th century especially, the party candidate nomination through primary elections (organized by the governments, state and local) and caucuses (local party meetings devoted to candidate nominations) took over: Oregon became the first state to establish a presidential preference primary in 1910, by 1912 there were 12 states with primaries and 20 states by 1920. This year 29 Democratic and 28 Republican primaries/caucuses are scheduled. The primary/caucus mechanism is continuously under refinement, a sign of living democracy, but the goal was well stated hundred years ago (see below).

CE Merriam: Primary Elections (1908)

 2008-01-13 

2008-01-06
2007-12-30
2007-12-23
2007-12-16
2007-12-09
2007-12-02
2007-11-25
2007-11-18
2007-11-11
2007-11-04
2007-10-28
2007-10-21
2007-10-14
2007-10-07
2007-09-30
2007-09-23
2007-09-16
2007-09-09
2007-09-02
2007-08-26
2007-08-19
2007-08-12
2007-08-05
2007-07-29
2007-07-22
2007-07-15
2007-07-08
2007-07-01
2007-06-24
2007-06-17
2007-06-10
2007-06-03

 

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WEBSITE  EDITOR:
Krešimir J. Adamić