It was after McGoven won the nomination in 1972 and went down in defeat with the second biggest loss of the 20th century that Democrats changed the rules.
It was noted that McGovern energized the far left to get out and vote in the primaries. The far left was enough to give McGovern the nomination. But they were not enough to prevent a huge loss to Nixon in the general election.
McGoven only got about 39 percent of the votes in the fall. They wanted to prevent that from happening again and therefore changed the rules so 20 percent of the delegates were party officials .... mostly office holders.. such as house and senate members and state committee members. They felt elected officials and party bosses would not be persuaded by a candidate that looked like a winner to a highly motivated few but was really just a loser.
The polls in the spring and summer of 1972 showed Nixon in big trouble. McGovern looked like a huge winner. McGovern had a double digit lead in the polls. But when they counted the votes after the general election Nixon had 60.7 percent of the votes and McGovern about 38 percent. They thought all those young McGovern supporters were going to vote. They didn't.
The only bigger victory in the 20th century was Roosevelt in 1938.. FDR got 60.8 percent of the vote in 1938.
But after the McGovern loss, they wanted to make it easy for the party bosses to be able to prevent almost anyone from winning a contested nomination with out the party bosses support.That is when they changed the rules.
The question is are their enough McGovern era special delegates still around to understand what is going on with Obama. Despite what the media says, I can't see Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Kentucky going for Obama in the general election.
I think the nomination will be up to the super delegates. Neither Hillary or Obama can win enough delegates to win with out a substantial majority of super delegates. The media keeps telling us HIlary can't get enough delegates from the primary elections. They are not telling you Obama can't get them either.
If Obama wins the nomination, I don't think he can win the election. He will do as poorly as McGovern did in the industrial midwest. And with out the Spanish votes in Texas and Florida and with out the bubba votes in the industrial midwest Obama is toast.
Thanks. I didn’t think the SD’s voted on the first ballot, tha changes everything.
If Hillary tries to thwart the will of dem voters by manipulating the SD vote, she will tear the party apart and McCain will win handily in November.
I can’t count the number of times pubs have won simply because the dems fight with each other and conservatives find a way to unite before the election.