Remember when we didn't know who'd be the presidential candidate

[raccoon]

until the Democratic/Republican conventions?

What happened? Is it just that so much money is involved?

[T Wolf]

1. Law of unintended consequences - maybe

The (stated) idea was to take the decision out of the "smoky backrooms" and give it to the voters. Yeah, right.

But I do think the pollution of the political process - hell, the pollution of the entire country - by the money factor has totally warped our democracy. It now is "pay-to-play" much more than it ever was. The only difference is that to play, you have to have a big enough stake. Thus, the power of corporations.

Corporate America cannot be fought on their terms. After all, they have a bigger arsenal (wallet) than we do. IMO, the only way to fight this is to remember that corporations are owned and run by people. Make the individuals who run the corporations personally responsible for the consequences of the actions of their companies. Only then can progress be made.

[FSogol]

2. The media stopped reporting and started to "help" choose candidates

The media has already decided the the 08 race will be McCain vs Clinton.

[jobycom]

5. Yeah, but that doesn't mean it will happen. They were wrong about Dean

They had chosen Dean just before the primaries started, and he lost.

[1932]

3. In September 2003, Kerry looked like he'd be one of the firs to drop out.

[jobycom]

4. Sorry, I'm only 41, I don't remember that.

Let's see, I seem to recall an issue in 1980 with Carter versus Kennedy, though everyone knew it would be Carter, they just weren't sure how much trouble Kennedy would cause. Mondale was known. Dukakis was known. Clinton was known a couple years in advance, though there was a blip a couple months before the election when Brown had an outside mathematical chance to maybe affect the convention...

Of the Republicans, Reagan was chosen before the convention, as was Bush, Dole, and W.

So I guess it was before Carter/Reagan. I don't rememeber those days, in terms of politics.

Was it better? I can't really see how.

[Hamlette]

6. it's the primaries

the parties decided they needed more time for their candidate to campaign so if you wait until the convention, usually mid summer, there is not enough time to stump. So primaries were added and now most elections are decided before the convention. The "floor fights" were also seen as not helpful. The parties want to present a candidate they have rallied around in their big TV spot (convention).

Conventions were also covered on TV gavel to gavel. No longer. With less TV time, the party only has a few hours to "get to" Americans. It's seen as a better use of time to introduce "our candidate" than to fight about who our candidate should be. (Chicken and egg thing here, maybe TV stopped covering conventions gavel to gavel when they became less interesting?)