opinion
The current system for picking a nominee is the product of accident rather than design, more like the result of small children scrambling to use up their Lego blocks than a master architect's plan. Depending on how things play out, this nominating process could look like James Madison's nightmare, the antithesis of the system of government that he and his fellow Founders devised.Is This Any Way to Pick a President? Madison's Nightmare - Yahoo! NewsThat system has stood the test of time. But the current process for nominating our President - the chief symbol and, in important respects, the primary custodian of that system - looks like it stands Madisonian principles on its head. In Madison's time, of course, presidential nominees were picked by small, elite groups. But those groups generally were representative of their parties, and nominees were selected for both their appeal across the party and their prospects for electoral success. And the selection was self-consciously designed to create a different constituency for the President than for the collateral branches of government.
Time for a constitutional amendment on the way we pick Presidents? Maybe...