Presidential Primaries Quotes
Commenting on the fact that candidates for presidential primaries would campaign in New Hampshire which was the first primary and then in the large states only:
Questioning the wisdom of the then existing system of selecting major party presidential candidates by primary elections where even few party members vote.
In Iowa they have a caucus primary system, which is very foreign to most politicians.
The editorial was commenting on the Republican National Convention in 1912. After serving two terms as President, and being out of office for 4 years, Roosevelt decided to challenge the sitting Republican President Taft for the Republican nomination, He had urged and obtained Republican primary elections in a number of states and had won almost all. This was the first time primaries were used in a presidential party nomination. However at the convention, many of the delegates from the state which voted for Roosevelt in the Primary elections voted for Taft nonetheless. There was incredible bitterness. The Republican party slit and TR formed a new Party—the Progressive (Bull Moose) Party and he got more votes than Taft did, However the two split the Republican vote adn Woodrow Wilson, the Democrat, won with a plurality. For the Republicans, the first Presidential Primary attempt was a disaster.
In the Republican Presidential Primary Election of 2012, Mitt Romney was one of 9 candidates. After a very bitter campaign Romney won, but he could never appeal sufficiently to his own party to get close to 50 percent of the Republicans to support him. However, that was more than any of the other 8 candidates. Hence he was the Republican Nominee despite the fact that he never obtained majority support. Thus Turner called him the Republican “Default Candidate”.
