Clinton is anointed in 2016 (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Blue-thumbnail-man-150x150.jpg)
Joe Biden is out. For Democrats, that is welcome news. But the party will not rouse Americans by simply throwing the car keys to Vice President Kamala Harris. To stir the people, Democrats need an open convention. By grabbing the veritable lapel of the American public, the party has a chance to steal Trump’s momentum — and America’s attention. In fact, history shows that in the recent past, this was exactly how presidents were nominated.
America’s presidential cycles, dubbed “The Circus” by a Showtime docuseries, have only recently become punishingly absurd ultra-marathons — the 2024 presidential election cycle officially began with the first Republican debate — 444 days before election day. Parties used to choose nominees at quadrennial summer conventions at which delegates from each state would gather to nominate a presidential ticket. Then over several hot summer days, candidates debated while insiders took stock of their political chops and electability. These conventions were essentially primaries writ small and in-brief. Delegates voted. Nominees were chosen. And the consequent presidential campaigns were measured in days (approximately100) — not years.
But choosing presidents via these closed sessions of party insiders understandably had its detractors. And in the early 20th century, good government progressives felt the need to challenge the monopoly power of party bosses. And so, the goo-goos, as the press labelled them, established presidential primaries. Reformers believed primaries would curb the power of party bosses, ease corruption, and make democracy more responsive to popular sentiments. By 1916, 20 scattered states hosted presidential primaries. But dubbed “beauty contests” by journalists, the primaries held no actual power. A candidate could prove their electability by winning one, but that state’s convention delegates were not required to support them. Voters turned out sporadically. Most candidates ignored them.
In postwar America, however, that calculus changed. In 1930, fewer than one-in-five Americans held high school diplomas; a paltry 3.9% graduated from college. By the Seventies, those numbers had tripled. Meanwhile, per capita GDP had nearly quintupled. In this milieu, a new mass demographic was born, the educated middle class. A mix of economics and vocation, the educated middle class are lawyers, engineers, teachers, doctors, and journalists. Not quite rich but comfortably affluent, they were blessed with leisure time. And this class no longer treated politics as spectator sport — they wanted to participate. Participatory democracy, to them, ensured greater accountability.
In 1952 their presidential candidate, Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, challenged Harry Truman in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Folksy, cerebral, and media savvy, the Tennessean clubbed the sitting president, 54-46%. The drubbing forced Truman into retirement; Kefauver went on to win 12 of 15 primary contests. But Kefauver never stood a chance of being nominated. Party bosses knew a secret the larger public did not — the Tennessean’s alcoholism. Kefauver’s boozing was prodigious even in an era in which crapulence was the norm. The party bosses won out. But Kefauver made the primaries, and the educated middle class, matter.
Instead of Kefauver, Democrats, at the 1952 open convention, nominated Illinois Governor, Adlai Stevenson. Generations before Barack Obama, the Illinoisan tickled the educated middle class to their cockles with stirring rhetoric. Forgetting Kefauver, they dubbed themselves Stevensonians, and flocked into the Democratic Party. In so doing, the educated middle class gained power in the Democratic Party far beyond their numbers.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeAn excellent article! Is all that going to happen though?
Amusing to see a university professor inveighing against “the educated middle class,” and omitting his own profession from the list of theirs.
We all know the following is true.
If Trump had been murdered, Joe Biden would still be running today.
What no analyst seems to be considering is that Biden pulling out in July might have been the plan all along to give Kamala Harris the nomination without her having to do what she is incapable of doing – winning primaries. If this is too far-fetched for you, remember that the Democrats have done this before. Covid was used to prevent a challenge to Biden developing in 2020 and in 2016 Sanders was robbed of the nomination because the Clintons had bailed out the party bankrupted by Obama.
My question is who among the Democrats likes Kamala Harris so much that they’d be willing to resort to shenanigans to put her up as the candidate? Hillary I get because the Clinton machine is powerful. Biden I get because the Democrats desperately wanted someone other than Sanders to be their nominee against Trump. Two populist candidates rejected by the donor class would have been downright apocalyptic for a certain small slice of the population. Why Harris though? There’s no Bernie to fret over this go round, but there is an RFK who could easily pull votes from Democrats who dislike Harris. If this was the plan, it’s a stupid plan and the Democrats are even stupider than I thought.
Dream on. The Democrat Elites will not risk it. Better to control the succession even if the chosen one is a loser. There is always next time and The Deplorables must be kept in their place. Losing one race is better than losing control.
Precisely. As much as I dislike Trump personally, his nomination was the best thing for the populist movement to further cement their control of the party and marginalize the old neocon establishment. The only thing better would have been if Trump had put forward someone like J.D. Vance to begin with and given him or her his full endorsement, thus giving his followers someone new to rally around while denying the media their chance to once again hammer away at Trump’s many personal flaws and abrasive personality. Whether Trump wins or loses, it’s a result I can live with because one of the parties at least won’t be under the thumb of the donor class. The Democrats won’t dare nominate someone they can’t control. America tried electing a reformer in 2008. Obama campaigned on hope and change then delivered corporate bailouts and a healthcare law that is hated by patients and medical professionals but loved by insurance conglomerates.
The only problem is, the Democrat Party has rejected middle America. Thus, Trump exists. It’s a little late for the Dems to start speaking a new language. They made their choice, leaving the vast engine of working America open to a new engineer.
Perhaps the author needs reminding that “the case for competition” was rejected by Dems when they elected to rig the primary process so that Joe was essentially the only option. Some guy no one has heard of picked up a few delegates during the sham, which is a few more delegates than Kamala received in 2020 when Dems resoundingly said ‘no’ to her candidacy.
This is the same Dem Party that went out of its way to shut out RFK, Jr. while self-righteously talking about ‘saving democracy.’ This is the same Dem Party that told people to blindly support a corrupt old man, then turned on that old man without a second thought. “But Trump.” Yes, indeed; Trump. And? He was president once before. The country was a lot better off then than it is now.
I knew hardly any of the stories mentioned here. If anything, thanks for the history lesson!.
All hail the democracy of a 2 party system. Follow the money. Propaganda is the lifeblood and money fuels propaganda. Whatever. Good article. Back to work. Gotta pay the IRS to maintain the illusion of private property ownership.
The Democratic Party leaders view an open candidate selection process as kryptonite. They did everything necessary to avoid it in 2016, 2020, and 2024. They would probably like to go back to the “smoke filled rooms” but they certainly do not want to open things up.
Which does not mean an open convention cannot happen if divisions are great enough— but that would not produce what the author dreams of.
For a brief moment, I allowed myself to hope that perhaps a moderate Democratic candidate could arise from the mess of the party at an Open Convention, but alas the decisions were made well before Joe was strong-armed to quit. Kamala has been coronated.
The only reason the Obamas haven’t endorsed her yet is to keep up some absurd illusion that we the people have a choice. Certainly Barack chose her, along with the Clintons.
And almost certainly Kamala will lose. She was a terrible debater in 2020. Biden tasked her with the border, which was like asking her to save the planet. The administration did zero about the border til a month ago. Trump will bury her in the debates.
The Dems tanked Bernie in 2016 for Hillary, forced Klobachur et al to exit the race in 2020 for Biden, and now have anointed Kamala.
When do the people have a choice?
Please, Ladies and Gentlemen, crowned not coronated.
Are you serious? The primary system is the only reason any serious change candidate has any chance at all. Party leaders have been trying to control and influence the primary system since it was implemented because they never wanted to cede that power to the people in the first place. The primary movement was the ultimate result of an earlier populist movement, the one that started back in the so-called Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when powerful industrial barons controlled the nominating process and pushed their cronies on the people without the people having much say. The elections of the 1870’s through the 1890’s were a lot like the elections of the 1990’s through 2016, with both candidates being bought and paid for representatives of the elite class. The people’s anger eventually resulted in a strong populist movement to reform the process and eliminate corruption. This populist movement applied pressure to the political machinery. Many of the reforms of FDR can be traced back to the first populist politicians from that era, who despite their lack of success, started an avalanche of public demand for change that the elite class ultimately couldn’t stop. The primaries continued a trend that had already seen states begin to send issues directly to the people through popular referendums, the direct election of Senators, woman’s right to vote, labor laws, etc.
This author just picks this up in 1952, immediately after the New Deal era and WWII had the country in a more democratic mood, a mood that would culminate in one final achievement, the civil rights movement. I don’t know what possessed the Democrats to nominate FDR in 1932, but I doubt they’d do it again. The elites have been trying to assert control ever since FDR, sometimes in obvious ways, like limiting presidents to two terms. Nothing weakens the power of aristocrats like a popular leader. The primaries are, in many ways, the saving grace of American politics. It gives candidates like Trump and Sanders who are reviled by the establishment a chance to take their cases directly to the people and prevail over a reluctant establishment. Without the primary system, there is no MAGA movement, no Bernie Bros. Most of the candidates considered populists or agitators for change would not have been chosen by party bosses. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul come immediately to mind. There are numerous others. The freedom caucus is largely a result of right wing populists and libertarians defeating their establishment backed opponents in primaries. Even more importantly, the primaries judge the mood of at least part of the country. Without the primary system, would there be so much pressure against the establishment for changes? Would we even know that such sentiment exists? Would the elites know and would it check their ambitions? Given how clueless they seem when it comes to the people at the lowest levels, my guess is they’d be going about business as usual with little clue how deep the resentment goes.
Even if the Democrats have an ‘open’ convention, it won’t really be all that open, it will just be a show for public consumption. If it happens, it will mean that the Democrats did the political calculus and deemed that bypassing Harris gives them a better chance to win the election. They’re weighing Harris’s unpopularity and California connection against the risks of angering blacks and the DEI crowd by bypassing a “woman of color” for most likely someone white and maybe even *gasp* a man. How they make these judgements will surely determine the course they take and whether they opt for an ‘open’ convention. If they determine Shapiro/Whitmer gives them a better chance to win for the reasons the author mentioned, they’ll have the open convention, play it up as Democratic like the author says. That is, after all, the way things used to be done. Candidates were routinely chosen for their state of origin more than their ability or policy and vice presidential nominees were also, and sometimes still are even in the primary era.
I will grant that in this unique situation, an open convention might be the best way to go. I’ll even grant that it might be the best way to win any single presidential election. What it isn’t and doesn’t do is give the people a voice in an important part of the political process, and that has consequences that go beyond one or a dozen individual elections. The Democrats might do it just to try and turn a negative into a positive and generate some actual enthusiasm for the nominee, since the default choice of the Vice President is uninspiring to say the least. I couldn’t say it’s the wrong move given the situation. To go back to the old way of doing things full time on the other hand. No thank you.
Any media analyst who says the Democrats need to nominate Biden’s replacement through an open convention has no understanding of practical politics in the US.
The biggest issue: nobody within the Democratic coalition WANTS to run against Harris. And no, that’s not about party leaders fixing the outcome. The timeline is just too short. Even assuming an ambitious Governor wins the party nomination in late August – it will be impossible to fundraise and build a national network of election offices and volunteers within 8 or 9 weeks. It’s not as if this challenger can automatically inherit Biden’s campaign money and campaign infrastructure. According to FEC rules, only Harris can legally do that.
A true primary would have been best, but it’s past time for that. The battleground state of Ohio has threatened to leave the Democratic Presidential candidate off the November ballot papers if a nominee is not chosen prior to the convention which starts August 26. As a result the Democratic party is trying to meet the Ohio deadline by holding an early online roll call nomination process on August 7th. Only Harris is in a position to win that roll call vote.
And there’s yet another reason why an open convention is unlikely. There are significant downsides to winning the nomination. First of all, it means taking away the nomination from a black woman. Large parts of the Democratic coalition will HATE you for doing it and never forgive you. Moreover, Harris has been endorsed by Biden and after voluntarily withdrawing from the campaign, Biden’s become a political saint. Going against the wishes of a hero is a bad look.
Not having an open convention is not a conspiracy. The Democratic party is not anti-democratic. Harris will enjoy an unchallenged “coronation” at the national convention only because her potential challengers are pragmatic and rational. It just makes no sense to challenge her at this time.
The MEDIA will decide if there is an open convention. They run DC…