Put simply, because North Carolina's presidential primary took place at the end of that highly discriminatory process, my own vote (along with at least a hundred thousand similarly registered voters) counted for nothing; the nominee of the Party with whom I was declared affiliated had already been (effectively) nominated. Cited in exhaustive evidence were the national processed that resulted in the presidential nominations of Dole, McCain and Romney, among other things.
After Republican finally took over the legislature and governor's mansion simultaneously, the case was made more problematic by their separating the presidential primary out and moving it forward from May to March beginning next year... though many issues at the heart of the prospective lawsuit remain unanswered.
The quadrennial presidential primary process, the "tournament" with its accompanying media frenzy violates both the spirit and the letter of federal law, the Voting Rights Act more specifically, for reasons not necessarily related to the rights of protected classes of those groups for whom a pattern of "historical discrimination" can be demonstrated.
At heart also, among other issues, is whether a political party is a public or a private institution. The answer seems to a matter of what inconvenient liabilities present themselves, from situation to situation.
The present system triumphed nationally following the Democrat Party's disastrous performances in 1968 and 1972. The power of New Hampshire went from novelty to king-maker following Eugene McCarthy's strong showing against President Johnson, early in the latter year; Johnson won that primary but with a spread to to persuade the incumbent to seek renomination. The eventual nominee in Chicago, later that tempestuous year, was Vice President Humphrey.
Following his defeat at the hands of Richard Nixon, a relatively obscure, also-ran candidate for the nomination in Chicago in 1968 was chosen to head up the primary "reform" process nationally on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, South Dakota Senator George McGovern.
It's unlikely the following four years of true grassroots work by McGovern did not factor in his ability to secure the nomination for himself in 1972, with the result being his eventual staggering defeat.
Watergate aside, it's perhaps of some interest in this context that the man similarly assigned the task of furthering "reform" of the presidential nomination process on behalf of the DNC following their landslide defeat in 1972 was someone once as equally obscure, the governor and then former governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter.
He secured the nomination for himself four years following, defeating a large field of candidates, running as the "conservative" evangelical among that field, defeating Gerald Ford.
(As an aside, I can't immediately remember any incumbent president seriously challenged for nomination - unto the actual convention - as Gerald Ford was by Ronald Reagan in 1976 and as Jimmy Carter was by Edward Kennedy in 1980 - who went on to actually win the election. Note the awkward language here, confusingly, perhaps, substituting election and nomination for renomination and re-election. President Ford was neither nominated nor elected president.)
To make a too-long story, here, shorter, closed primaries in states superseded in effective influence by states with small populations and wide-open primaries, schedules set up by legislatures and special interests totally unaccountable in states where voters in late primaries are submerged.
It's a damn game, defended by the notion that the two major parties are private institutions. The federal law makes no distinction with regard to primaries and general election influence, and if these institutions are "private," why do states host and pay for their balloting, which is no small expense? And if, then, these "freely associated" groups are, in fact, public institutions, then they are liable under the federal Voting Rights Act, under Section 2, for example, which applied in all jurisdictions, and, in North Carolina, under Section 5 in 40 of 100 counties, and thus statewide.
I do not offer a reform, only what may, perhaps, answer the question - of at least offer one of many reasons at the heart of why nominees like Dole, McCain and Romney manage to obtain their "turns" to lose nationally. I have my ideas of what might work better, but there are liabilities that must be eventually addressed, perhaps at an Article V convention.
One more aside, the last time North Carolina's presidential primary amounted to being influential was in 1976, in the close race between President Ford and Governor Reagan. The latter winning the late presidential primary kept his candidacy alive through the convention, though it was eventually won by Ford, who then, of course, lost to Jimmy Carter. Four years later, the Democrats experienced their own contest that resulted in a nominating convention that wasn't merely a formality, eventually won by President Carter, who, of course, lost the general election to Ronald Reagan.
Every four years we breeze through these nominating seasons and end up, afterward, wondering what happened and why. But there is nothing sacred about this process, though it is largely forgotten afterward and is rarely examined again until it is underway.
We are not helpless to change this process, which is, in my opinion, illegal on several fronts. But it will not change, and the special interests will continue to manipulate the result, as long as voters continue to forget the tournament between elections.
Did you cite the people who ran against them in the primaries?
That's evidence right there to explain why they got the nomination.
Or did you assume that a rigged process prevented the imaginary ideal conservative candidate from ever showing up in the real world?
Nothing is written in stone about the nominating process.
Texas, for example, could theoretically neutralize the GOP-E candidate by switching its primary to March 15 and winner-take-all.
>> why nominees like Dole, McCain and Romney manage to obtain their “turns” to lose nationally
Amazing a faction actually has the power to affect that outcome time and again.