My Vote Means NothingHow presidential primaries backfired.

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Party reforms after 1968 solidified the primaries' importance. That year, Sen. Eugene McCarthy came within 4,000 votes of upsetting President Johnson in the New Hampshire Democratic contest, prompting LBJ to end his re-election bid. Robert Kennedy then jumped in the race—his primary fights against McCarthy would determine the party's nominee. RFK's assassination on June 5 was all the more devastating to his supporters because it happened the night he won the crucial California showdown. In August, at a deeply divided convention, the Democrats chose the plodding Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who had won none of the preliminary contests, whose selection met with despair, and who went on to defeat in November.

The Democrats appointed a commission led by South Dakota Sen. George McGovern and Congressman Donald Fraser to reform the nomination process. The McGovern-Fraser reforms required greater transparency in how states chose their delegates. To meet these new strictures, many states found it simplest to hold binding primaries—making delegate selection a function of the popular vote. (The Republicans, responding to the same democratizing pressures, did similarly.) Before 1972, an average of 14 states held primaries each election; today almost every states holds one. Turnout also climbed.

In theory, the greater power of ordinary voters should have made for more open conventions. It's easier for party insiders to close ranks behind an anointed candidate—or to bargain their way to a consensus—than it is for tens of millions of atomized citizens to do so. But since primaries became the main method of choosing nominees, the opposite has happened: Despite occasional upsets in the early going, front-runners have mostly held on to win the nominations by racking up primary victories. Voters, sheeplike, dutifully follow the winner.

Several interrelated factors explain this phenomenon. One is what pollsters call a bandwagon effect. Because people like to hold opinions that the majority shares, they will unwittingly adopt the opinions of the majority. After Gary Hart's victory over Walter Mondale in the 1984 Democratic primary, he gained 27 points in the Gallup poll overnight.

The second is the news media. Even if people don't consciously cast their ballots for the most "electable" contender, candidates enjoy a surge of positive news coverage after winning New Hampshire or Iowa. This golden glow makes them more attractive to voters in later rounds. In 1976, Jimmy Carter trailed the pack of Democratic aspirants when a victory in the Iowa caucuses landed him on the morning news shows and in the newsmagazines. Evening news programs allotted him five times as much airtime as any of his rivals. New Hampshire media coverage is even more intense. According to a study of the 1996 Republican race by political scientist Emmett Buell, the New Hampshire primary generated more than six nightly news stories per delegate at stake, compared with an average of 0.18 stories per delegate overall. The disproportionate media coverage that New Hampshire enjoys means voters in subsequent weeks are much more likely to be influenced by the outcome in the Granite State than in states where many more delegates are up for grabs.

Third, campaign-finance reforms passed in 1974 capped individual donations at $1,000 apiece (raised to $2,000 as part of the 2002 McCain-Feingold Act). Candidates' fund-raising thus became less dependent on big donors, more reliant on mass appeal. Poor showings in New Hampshire, or at other points early in the campaign, now dry up not just a candidate's publicity but also the dollars that publicity brings.

Finally, in 1972, the Democratic National Committee banned winner-take-all primaries. (The ban was lifted but imposed again in 1992.) This made it harder for candidates (at least for Democrats) who are lagging in the race to become viable later on. With winner-take-all primaries, a trailing candidate could regain viability with a first-place finish in a big state; now, with delegates allotted in proportion to how candidates place, a front-runner can steadily grind out a victory merely by doing well enough to maintain his lead.

Not since 1968, then, have voters felt the excitement of a June primary where the nomination is at stake. On the contrary, the trend of the last 40 years has been to front-load—to move contests earlier and earlier in the campaign season. The 2008 campaign is already looking radically different from those of years past, with nearly 20 states, including California, Florida, and New York, having pushed up their primaries or caucuses to compete with Iowa and New Hampshire.

But front-loading created another irony. So far, at least, it has strengthened the hand of those first states, making the states that follow them little more than dominoes waiting to tumble into place. More on this tomorrow.

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David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers and author of three books of political history, has written the "History Lesson" column since 1998.

Illustration by Rob Donnelly.

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