Why is the Republican presidential primary so staged?

[FerrisBueller86]

When the incumbent Republican president is not running, everyone already knows which candidate will be nominated.  In 1988, it was clear that Bush Sr.  would be nominated because he was Reagan's vice president.  In 1996, it was clear that Bob Dole would be nominated because he was Senate majority leader and it was his turn to be president.  In 2000, it was clear that George W. Bush would be nominated.  In other words, the Republican presidential primary is NEVER open, and prominent Republicans will always stampede to support one particular candidate.

WHY WHY WHY is the party run like this?  The Democratic nomination isn't so staged and is open when neither the sitting president nor sitting vice president is running.  Nobody expected Carter to be nominated in 1976, Dukakis to be nominated in 1988, Clinton to be nominated in 1992, or Kerry to be nominated in 2004 at the start of the season.  (The Democrats do have other faults, though.  But scripted primaries aren't one of them.)

If my mother hadn't been running to be a Clinton delegate in 1996, I would have voted in the Republican primary for someone other than Dole just to try to stop him.  (I thought that Lamar Alexander and Richard Lugar sounded respectable for Republicans.)  If my mother hadn't been running to be a Gore delegate in 2000, I would have voted in the Republican primary for McCain.  I just couldn't believe that Republicans were tripping over each other to endorse the dumbest candidate in the field.  I liked McCain's straight talk, I found it hard to object to a war hero, and I couldn't believe that even VETERANS preferred a draft-dodging hawk to a conservative Republican who was a Vietnam War hero and a POW.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Because the Religious Right owns the GOP and crowns their candidate before the primary even begins. The primary then just becomes a show election, like the ones in Singapore, which are in theory democratic and fair, yet somehow the ruling party never loses.

[Defarge]

The Republican Party by its very nature rallies around a standard bearer very quickly.  They understand the neccessity for party unity, and given that the interests of Republican donors are usually the same (pro-business government policy), there are no issues to divide  them in their quest for an organized united party.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has been, for fifty years, a massive house of cards made up of special interest groups.  Whereas Republicans will swallow their objections, and shut up come convention time in the interests of party unity, Democrats will just keep screaming.  Add to this Democratic donors giving money to candidates more for causes than for the party, and you have Gephardt getting union money, Dean getting anti-war money, Edwards getting lawyer money, and a dozen other candidates, all with decent shots of winning. 

Republicans, coming from a business, efficiency first, background, understand that annointing a candidate the year before an election year will help them tremendously, whereas Democrats would much rather fight it out for months.  See the 1980 and 1992 Democratic conventions where the losers of the primaries were a big thorn in the sides of the nominees. 

Our strength as a party is our vast diversity.  Our weakness as a party, a weakness that has begun to show more and more as we accomodate for new groups, is our vast diversity. 

[RBH]

Winner Take All Primaries help to narrow the field quickly

[Ebowed]

Well, it wasn't exactly certain Bush would get the nomination in 1988.  Reagan didn't even endorse him.

And 2000 was not an easy win for Bush, either.  It wasn't like he was definitely going to be the nominee... well, until the South Carolina primary.

[KEmperor]

If my mother hadn't been running to be a Clinton delegate in 1996, I would have voted in the Republican primary for someone other than Dole just to try to stop him.  (I thought that Lamar Alexander and Richard Lugar sounded respectable for Republicans.)  If my mother hadn't been running to be a Gore delegate in 2000, I would have voted in the Republican primary for McCain.  I just couldn't believe that Republicans were tripping over each other to endorse the dumbest candidate in the field.  I liked McCain's straight talk, I found it hard to object to a war hero, and I couldn't believe that even VETERANS preferred a draft-dodging hawk to a conservative Republican who was a Vietnam War hero and a POW.

If you are a Democrat, why the hell would you be voting in the Republican primary anyway?  Argh, I hate open primary states!

[MasterJedi]

If my mother hadn't been running to be a Clinton delegate in 1996, I would have voted in the Republican primary for someone other than Dole just to try to stop him.  (I thought that Lamar Alexander and Richard Lugar sounded respectable for Republicans.)  If my mother hadn't been running to be a Gore delegate in 2000, I would have voted in the Republican primary for McCain.  I just couldn't believe that Republicans were tripping over each other to endorse the dumbest candidate in the field.  I liked McCain's straight talk, I found it hard to object to a war hero, and I couldn't believe that even VETERANS preferred a draft-dodging hawk to a conservative Republican who was a Vietnam War hero and a POW.

If you are a Democrat, why the hell would you be voting in the Republican primary anyway?  Argh, I hate open primary states!

Then you'd really hate Wisconsin!

[12th Doctor]

The Republican Party by its very nature rallies around a standard bearer very quickly.  They understand the neccessity for party unity, and given that the interests of Republican donors are usually the same (pro-business government policy), there are no issues to divide  them in their quest for an organized united party.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has been, for fifty years, a massive house of cards made up of special interest groups.  Whereas Republicans will swallow their objections, and shut up come convention time in the interests of party unity, Democrats will just keep screaming.  Add to this Democratic donors giving money to candidates more for causes than for the party, and you have Gephardt getting union money, Dean getting anti-war money, Edwards getting lawyer money, and a dozen other candidates, all with decent shots of winning. 

Republicans, coming from a business, efficiency first, background, understand that annointing a candidate the year before an election year will help them tremendously, whereas Democrats would much rather fight it out for months.  See the 1980 and 1992 Democratic conventions where the losers of the primaries were a big thorn in the sides of the nominees. 

Our strength as a party is our vast diversity.  Our weakness as a party, a weakness that has begun to show more and more as we accomodate for new groups, is our vast diversity. 

There is a lot of truth to this.

The Democrats have, for the past 60 years, had the convienince of being able to bicker amonst themselves, as they were the sound majority party.  The Republicans, on the other hand, have learned that the only way they can survive is by presenting a unified front.

Insurgent candidates have always done very well both in the Democrat primaries and as Dem candidates in the general election (FDR, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton and, you could argue, Truman).  Whereas, Republicans have always had terrible luck with insurgents, either they don't make it in the primaries, or they die quickly in the general election campaign (Wilkie, Goldwater).  The last successful insurgent candidate for the Republicans was...

Lincoln.

If the Republicans can remain in the majority and the Democrats sink to minority status, this might change.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Fascism sells better.

[FerrisBueller86]

If you are a Democrat, why the hell would you be voting in the Republican primary anyway?  Argh, I hate open primary states!

I'd do it if there were no real Democratic primary races.  In 1996, Clinton had no primary challenger.  In 2000, everyone knew that Gore would get the nomination, and I wouldn't have objected to having Bradley as the nominee.  If I had no real Democratic primary races to vote in but a good race was taking place on the Republican primary, I would cross over and vote for a relatively liberal Republican.