Show H B® When he hasn t been working for Presidents — he was A GMCXHf an adviser to Kennedy and Johnson — Pulitzer Prizewinning historian James MacGregor Bums has been worrying and writing about them Now in his latest book Professor Bums reveals his deepest concern of ait the process by which we select them By James MacGregor Bums W hat can we say about our primary system? Consider the 1968 ex-Ev- en before over Vietnam honed Chicago and that year’s Democratic convention into another battleground Presidential politicians had run mto ptt-fain the selection of convention delegates In the snows of New Hampshire Eugene McCarthy scored a media triumph over President Johnson from a loophole in the stale’s Presidential primary law which resulted in McCarthy bring awarded more votes than the winner of the primary When LBJ withdrew from the contest at the end of March con tender Hubert Humphrey learned that the filing deadline for enterii Presidential primaries had passed in but two states Some system for electing a President! Things haven’t really improved In fact during the past decade or so a profound perverse almost revolutionary change has occurred in the way we The choose our chief executives number of Presidential primaries has radically increased — from 17 of them electing 40 percent of the national convention delegates in 1968 to 35 picking more than 80 percent of the delegates in 1980 And all the old problems endemic to primaries have intensified: fragmentation of candidate attention ana vote impact due to a swarm of entrants the virtual abdication of party leadership emphasis on personalities rather than issues and heavy campaign spending The rapidly tightening interlock between the defects of primaries and the faults and frailties of coverage offered by mass media especially television nave certainly added to a worrisome situation AH these factors force us to raise a most serious concern: What relation does our manner of electing Presidents have to the way these individuals will govern! During the last decade political experts sought to answer that question by applying the latest techniques of content analysis irvdepth panel surveys and random choice of thousands of news stories in all the media In reviewing media coverage the rtww Mina g bmmpw spending as the central problem dearly some campaigns cost too much — about half a billion dollars were spent in 1980 for Federal offices alone — and some candidates spend a lot more than others But dollars are not automatically convertible into votes and the Government has made progress in “sanitizing campaign finance What does deeply disturb me is the effect of all these political long-ruforces — the reinforcement of tenden- m n cies toward electoral disorganization political disintegration mass spectator-shi- p opinion volatility and above all leadership personalism These situations undermine effective leadership Assume as Michael J Robinson an associate Catholic 1972: Nixon and Huskie (by a turprian&y narrow margin) won in New Hampshire Nixon and McGovern were the nominees and Nixon trounced hit opponent analysts were especially struck by the “horse race” phenomenon This means media emphasis not on what candi-a- y about issues and policies but g on who is winning and losing on polls and touting their significance on the strategies and tactics with the “election jarne- am-ductin- W I960: Kennedy and Nixon took New and wen nominated JFJL Hampshire - - — occanw I fBMBE and on the immediate circumstances surrounding the horse race Some- times especially of the town he just stopped in these were matters lacking intrinsic value it was easy for the media to spread their own gloss on them Thus Senator Edmund Muskie’s tearyeyed talk in New Hampshire — in which he revealed his feelings on how a particularly unfair newspaper editor treated his wife — might have been perceived as the authentic emotions of a compassionate man who along with his wife had been wronged: it was covered by the media as some kind of weakness Even more perverse is what I will call the “double-X-" phenomenon: The exaggeration and eraedation most typical instance of the former was the media’s conversion of Johnson's New Hampshire primary victory in 1968 into a victory for McCarthy Of course McCarthy did remarkably well for going against a President but he did not uan lt is the expectation-raisin-g game howevm that I find the most remarkable example of the media’s chutzpah On the basis of obscure and perhaps flimsy evidence a newsperson will report that “it is expected” that candidate A wfl win by 10 percent and DG does business develops a “symbiotic relationship with the strong institutions and a parasitic relationship with the weak” And understand that the most feeble of our major decimal institutions is the Presidential nominating system Most Presidential primaries 1952: Eisenhower and Kefauver won in New Hampshire bid Eisenhower and n me genem emcaoti have a dual role: testing a candidate’s popularity and choosing delegates to the national conventioalBut voters are usually not aware of the connection between the two voting decisions The party stands by helpless while its most important judgment is taken over by the “people” most of whom are not politically knowledgeable The conse-auenof this is mat the media can daim so exclusive a relationship with Presidential primaries that they virtual-l- y dominate them This symbiotic bridge between mass media and Presidential primaries has further implications Those who would be President play the ultimate game of King of the Rode In order to reach a mass public they must exploit the communications industry without be- ce in Presidential primary coverage television newspersons spend twice as much time compersonality quirks menting and tactics as on matters of substance For example media coverage focuses on campaign ephemera Newspeople are fascinated by little blunders — Gerald Ford bumping his head Ted Kennedy stumbling over some words another candidate forgetting the name on-trivi- but 1 by denly the media use words like “comeback or “upset” to describe the outcome Nothing is reported about the real story— the media’s misleading information of the election situation But I consider these failings of the media only minor Many voters have caught on to the double-and take need Nor do I see campaign X Fuaur Weexlt poniuy m iim 5 |