Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. U.S.A. PRESIDENCY.
A Presidential election in America is a complicated business. The elaborate preliminaries are due in the first place to the aims of those who drafted the Constitution, and in the second to the expedients whereby the party organisations endeavour to circumvent them. The Convention of 1787 intended the President to be a reduced and improved copy of the English King. He is George lIP, shorn of portion of his prerogative, and subject to certain restraints. He holds office for four years, and he cannot bestow titles, but, otherwise, his position is analogous to that of the English Monarch in that he is conceived to be the representative of the nation as a whole, standing above all political parties. This idea is apparent in the machinery provided for his election. To have left the choice of the First Citizen to a popular vote would have encouraged the success of the mediocrity or the self-advertiser. Accordingly, it is laid down by the Constitution that the President shall be chosen by an electoral college, the members of which had been previous-
ly elected by the voters of the various States. This plan was expected to ensure the choice by the tranquil and deliberate way, of tranquil an ddeliberate way, of the man whom they, in their unfettered discretion, deemed fittest to be the chief magistrate of the Union. The expectation has not been fulfilled. The President is, in fact, if not in theory, elected by a popular vote. The members of the electoral college have no freedom of action. ' They are pledged to support the nominees of their respective parties, and that pledge has never been violated since 1796. Although the President is formally elected in January, his identity is known early in November, when the electoral college is chosen. The proceedings in January are a mere surplusage. But long before November the issue has been narrowed down. In the June preceding the election, the National Conventions decide who shall be their standard bearers. But before ever they meet that question is usually settled. The delegates to those conventions have already been chosen at the primaries. They have announced which candidate for the Presidency they favour. Consequently, when the primaries are complete, it is merely a matter of arithmetic to ascertain who is likely to receive the party nomination. Hence their importance. Once their result is known, all that remains to be determined is whether victory will eventually fall to the Republicans or the Democrats. This, of course, does not always occur. AVhile with the Republican Convention a bare majority is sufficient, in the Democratic Convention one of twothirds is necessary. A candidate may command a majority which is, nevertheless, not large enough to win him the nomination, and in this event a dark horse in the shape of a compromise candidate may be chosen. In general, however, the verdict of the primaries is echoed by the convention.
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Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 May 1928, Page 4
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498Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928. U.S.A. PRESIDENCY. Wairarapa Daily Times, 23 May 1928, Page 4
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