Those following the contest for the American presidency, as it proceeds with its first stage of party choices of candidates, can recognize that the process is less institutionalized and, we might say, less constricted than that with which we and other Caricom countries are familiar. For at its present stage, we can easily recognize that it is more in the hands of the people, or at least of a wide cross-section of the party electorates, than is the case with our systems.
In our systems, broadly inherited from the British, the choice of party candidate is constricted to a choice by party members of an individual recognized as being strongly affiliated, in the sense of being a recognized party member him/herself. Formal time as a party member, and therefore extended recognition of this, gives the individual seeking to be the formal candidate a legitimized status for seeking acceptance by the party.
The American system gives an intending candidate recognition for entry into the contest, even though he may never have been recognized by the general membership as having had formal participation in it for any extended period. And as we can see in the case of Donald Trump in particular, a first time contender for representing a party for the presidency or any other office, activity in the party, or formal acceptance of its main tenets, is clearly less significant than two other factors. First, in this system where the cost of running a candidacy is not really seen as a substantial responsibility of the party, what is clearly more important is that the individual can finance a national campaign, and has a better chance than others of doing so if, in common parlance, he can put his money where his mouth is.
Secondly, taking advantage of the relatively loosely organized character of the party, he can, as he has, intervene directly with the party’s members or supporters. And his success in gaining their allegiance, or at least attracting them, for whatever reason, to his ideas and plans for government, functions as a form of pressure on the formal party to accept him. Then finally, this process is legitimised by the pre-formal election process of a primary, or what we might call, within our parties, a run-off.
On the Democratic Party side, the situation can be seen, historically, to be more or less similar, though the party probably puts a greater emphasis on a proponent for candidacy having to demonstrate some degree of ideological commitment to promoting the welfare of the “working class”, a phrase that has a wider connotation in the United States than in Britain and the countries which have largely inherited its system.
Americans might well take the view that what we can describe as the flexible nature of the American system in its choice of candidates, as it has evolved, is probably more open, and therefore in their terms, democratic than the British system and its extensions into its former colonies. For in the British system, an individual seeking candidacy must demonstrate not simply some length of time as a member of the party, and more often than not, some extended commitment to its tenets, but participation in its activities.
Yet the British will claim that in the US system, it is not ideological commitment or even long-time membership or activity in the party that counts, but simply, especially in the case of the presidency, the possession of sufficient cash to undertake the long haul of persuading the electorate through the media or by extensive travel over the length and breadth of the country. Managing the extensive geography of the system is itself seen as a test.
Naturally, these considerations come to mind as we see Donald Trump seeking to systematically run the other claimants claiming to be Republicans out of his way as the campaign for choice of a candidate of the Republican Party proceeds. What separates him from them is the extent of his ability to use campaign funds and to do as he pleases, whether this is acceptable to the formal party or not.
Yet, some will say, to be fair, the system, in practice, is not so flexible as to let money completely control the race, and that there is a certain equality in that the Republican Party is not really that much more susceptible to manipulation than the Democrats. They will claim that it was John Kennedy’s inherited money that allowed him to trump other Democratic candidates in his first race for the presidency, although Kennedy’s defenders will claim that the former president had been through the ropes by seeking election to Senate, a race in which, perhaps, the parties play a greater formal role.
What, however, is interesting in this race, is that the candidate with the most money at his disposal has not, unlike Kennedy for example, come in with any record of previous participation in party affairs or at the lower levels of elective participation, but only with his funds. In turn, however, Trump is seeking to claim that expertise in his own trade is perhaps more relevant than ever at this time, when there is much concern about the state of the American economy, and some contention as to what kind of skill or experience is required to pull it up.
Yet, in the light of this line of argument, Americans, and more so Trump supporters, will claim that the system, through its primaries, does put pretenders to electoral office, however untried in the sense of previous participation in party activity, through a testing and legitimating process. And indeed, Americans in general will probably agree that the primary, as a pre-formal election run, does give the party supporters the opportunity to make a choice before the formal elections, thus giving democratic choice an initial avenue for judgement and selection, before the formal process recognized by the constitution as legitimate.
Others will perhaps claim that the American process discriminates, with the party not really left to be the final legitimator of a candidacy. But even those who would prefer the British-inherited, formal party-controlled, system to others, will also accept that what is sometimes visible in electoral campaigns, is not a particular individual’s money, but the people’s money being used at the discretion of the governing party in parliament.
Nonetheless, the presence of Trump’s money will, if he is nominated as the candidate of the Republican Party, be a good test of the various theories of the different kinds of institutional influences on the elective process.
