National Party Research Paper

Parties have a bit more power than they’re given credit for in amount of power they have over presidential nominations, but it’s still a limited amount of power over the nominating process. For one, the national party is able to state how many delegates are able to be sent from each state to the party’s national convention, but states themselves, not the party’s, choose their delegates. Also, states were able to at one point control caucuses as well until they were outlawed that state parties were no longer allowed to do so. Now instead of state parties having control the national parties made it a more open process that was more representative (199).There was a point in time when the the parties were at one point in time able to pick delegates
In most primaries the candidates themselves have the ability to pick their own delegates, who are loyal to them and less likely to be influenced by the party to switch the candidate they’re voting for because of how loyal they are to that candidate. Furthermore, this brings up the role of superdelegates, how they came to be and another role of the party in presidential nominations. The “superdelegate” was introduced in 1984 by the Democrats who wanted to “enhance the party’s role by adding delegate seats at the national convention for elected and part officials” (205). Though superdelegates are a staple at conventions they have never been the deciding factors in any presidential nomination. Most of the time the races for the nomination conclude earlier than expected and an example used in the book came from the 2008 and 2012 presidential races, in which the nominee owed that nomination to their supporters not to superdelegates making it clear that the party had no influence over the candidate. The second role of the party is that parties want higher turnout of voters and the book emphasizes that state and local parties look for nominees that are more likely to bring voters to the