The History of Our Presidential Nominating Process

[MineralMan]

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/NomProcess.html

This is a very long article on a very good website, written in 2004. It's not a fast read, but it runs down the history of how the United States has nominated and elected its Presidents since the very beginning. Those who are complaining about our current nominating process might be truly shocked to learn how that process actually began. Here are the first two paragraphs. Click the link above to read the rest, if you have some time and an interest in the history of Presidential Election Methods. Remember, though, it's a long piece and that I warned you of that:

Come next 2 November, for only the 55th time in its history, the United States of America will choose a President and a Vice-President by election. But who will be the finalists, as it were, for this prize of what has become the most powerful political office on the globe? The process by which the candidates in the General Presidential Election will be nominated will largely determine the answer to this question. In this piece, I will trace the origin and development of a nominating process which can be both amazing and frustrating to the average American citizen trying his or her best to understand it.

Despite the habit of the mainstream news media of treating the nomination process as a series of blockbuster heavyweight bouts with names such as "Super Tuesday", the object of the game of winning the nomination in one of the two major parties is that of collecting the pledges from a majority of the delegates to the parties' National Conventions held during the summer before the General Election. There are only three methods used at present to allocate delegates to presidential contenders: the "Caucus/Convention", what is currently referred to as the "Presidential Primary" or some combination of the two. (For more details on the various methods which are usually used in the present day to allocate National Convention delegates, please see the "Glossary" page on this website.)

[MineralMan]

1. For a historical look at our current Primary system

you can look at a Wikipedia article, which picks up where the article above leaves off:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_primary