Chapter 13 Section 4
I. Nominating a President
A. The Role of the Convention
1. Narrow the field to one or two people.
2. Party committee begins planning the convention one year in advance
B. What cities have had the most conventions? 1. Chicago has had the Republican
convention 14 times, the Democratic convention 11 times.
2. St. Louis has had 5 conventions. C. Who goes to convention?
1. Each state gets a certain number of delegates – usually the number of delegates equals the number of electors
C. Presidential Primaries – purpose: to elect some or all of a state party organization’s delegates and/or to
express a preference among the various contenders for that party’s presidential nomination.
D. History of Primaries: started in early 1900’s. By 1992 38 states held some form of primaries. New Hampshire holds the 1st primary.
E. Types of Primaries: Delegate selection, Preference, Winner – take – all (most common), Those states that do not have primaries hold caucus’ and
What is a convention?
I. Major role of the National Convention
A. Pick President and Vice-Presidential Candidate B. Adopt Party Platform
C. Unify the party behind the candidate. II. Convention Setting
A. Opening session: organizing the convention 1. Sing Star Spangle Banner
2. Official Roll Call 3. Prayer is read
B. Keynote address is the high point of the 1st session
1. Delivered by a dynamic speaker. 2. Sets the tone for the campaign 3. Glorifies the party
4. Condemn the opposition 5. Predict victory
C. Selection of 4 major committee members 1. Rules of order of business
2. Permanent organization 3. Credentials verified
D. The 2nd and 3rd sessions (days)
1. Speeches by leading party figures. 2. Committee reports
E. Final session
1. The chief task is the nomination of a candidate
2. Someone nominates a candidate, then it must have a “second”
3. Important to praise the candidate in your speech 4. Balloting begins – each state votes alphabetically,
III.Section of the right person
A. What kind of person does the convention usually nominate?
1. An incumbent president is usually always a #1 choice. 2. If no incumbent they look for the following:
a. Someone well-known politically - Served in an elective office
b. Governors have been the most selected candidates - Most come from larger states
c. Most are protestant
d. They are pleasant, healthy, happily marries, and have a happy family.
The Electoral College
I. The Electoral College
A. Members are chosen by popular vote, they meet on the Monday
after the 2nd Wednesday in December where they cast their votes for
president. To win a candidate must reach 270 votes.
B. If no one has a majority – 270 – the election is thrown into the House of representatives (this happened in 1800, 1824, and 2000. 1. The House selects a president from the top 2 vote getters
2. Each state delegation gets one vote. 3. You would need 26 to win.
C. If no one gets a majority of the vote, the newly elected vice-president wins. – Speaker of the House
II. Flaws in the Electoral College A. Problems with popular vote.
1. That the winner of the popular vote may not actually win.
2. The number of electoral votes does not match up with
that states population.
3. The popular vote winner has failed to win 4 times
1824: Andrew Jackson vs. John Quincy Adams 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes vs. Samuel Tilden
Second Major Flaw in the System: A. Electoral Conduct
1. Nothing in the constitution requires the electors to vote for the candidate favored by the popular vote in their state.
2. This has happened 9 times.
3. They can also change the order – selecting
Third Major Defect
A. If there is a tie in the electoral college the vote goes to the House of Representatives where
each state gets one vote no matter what size state or population they have.
B. If for example the state of Oklahoma who has 5 members of the House, would get one vote
to be decided upon by those 5 members, what if they could not decide who to vote for… then
Oklahoma would loose its vote.
Proposed reforms
A. The district plan – do away with the winner take all system, give each candidate 2 state electoral votes, plus a vote for each district within the state that the candidate won.
B. Proportional Plan – give each candidate a percentage of electoral votes based on the number or percentage of the state that they won. If a candidate were to win 40% of the popular vote in that state, and the state had 20 electoral votes the candidate would win 8 of the electoral votes.
