Can Anybody Solve the Puzzle?

It's a very, very questionable method of selecting presidential candidates, and actually it never does. All it does is destroy some candidates.

--Adlai Stevenson in 1958 The presidential primary season is growing closer--the first vote will be in New Hampshire on Feb. 24--and twelve declared candidates, ten Democratic and two Republican, are eagerly campaigning for support. But as they jostle for early position, they are encountering a sad fact: the new rules that were supposed to make the primaries more open and democratic have actually reduced the system to a shambles. It seems possible that after the last primaries on June 8, all of the sound and fury will have settled nothing.

Not only have the election regulations become highly complicated, but they are still changing. As Arizona Congressman Morris Udall, one of the Democratic candidates, has said, "It's like being asked to plan for a game in which you don't know for sure what the rules are, or how many players each team will have, or even how large the field will be." Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale, who gave up his hopes for the Democratic nomination after an early trial, heartily agrees: "The system doesn't make any sense at all any more. There's just no excuse for putting a candidate through that kind of hell."

So Complex. One problem is sheer quantity. Only 15 states held primaries in 1952; there were 21 in 1972. This year there will be at least 30. All in all, about three-fourths of the convention delegates will be selected in primaries this year, whereas less than half were chosen that way in 1968.

Most of the rule changes have been made within the Democratic Party. They are part of the general movement, begun in 1964 and accelerated sharply in 1972, to assure women and minorities more delegate seats at the national convention. After those changes angered party leaders and George McGovern lost a lopsided election, the rules were modified to eliminate what had become a virtual quota system of delegate selection. But the resulting rules for conducting state caucuses and conventions were so complex that many state legislatures threw up their hands and decided to hold primary elections instead.

Yet the Democrats also changed the primary-election rules, in an effort to give more candidates and their supporters a better chance of sending delegates to the national convention. They dropped the winner-take-all system and decided that any candidate receiving at least 15% of the statewide vote should get a corresponding percentage of delegates. Much of the current confusion has arisen as state legislatures have tried to translate those national rules into specific election laws.

Some states, for example, have taken advantage of a loophole in the rules and have chosen to elect delegates in each congressional district or, in some cases, in even smaller areas. Any candidate winning a plurality of votes in a district will get all of the delegates from that locality. Each such election is in effect a mini-primary--and each candidate faces the delicate decision of whether or not to enter. A few states, including California, Michigan and Nevada, require a candidate to win only 10% or 5% of the vote, instead of 15%, in order to gain a share of the delegates.

Of the 30 states that have so far decided to hold primaries this year, at least eleven have chosen to do so at the district level. These include six of the largest states: New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Texas and New Jersey.

This means, according to Robert Keefe, campaign manager for Washington Senator Henry Jackson, "you're going to have hundreds of little primaries all over the country. You have to take each of the districts, one by one, and assess your candidate's strengths and weaknesses, make slates, and run individual campaigns. It's a real can of worms."

Opening the lid on that can means facing a bewildering variety of accommodations to the particular interests in individual states. Some examples:

> In Texas, backers of George Wallace were rebuffed when they sought a statewide primary, in which the Alabama Governor could have expected to pick up many delegates. Instead, the Texas primary next May 1 will be conducted mainly at the level of state-senate districts. This plan was devised by and for Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, a candidate whose supporters can probably muster a plurality in most of those areas, thus freezing out Wallace.

>In Mississippi, backers of Wallace and the long-entrenched party officials slipped a statewide primary through the legislature. But a heavily black reformist faction, which is recognized by national headquarters, refused to participate. This might have forced a nasty fight at the national convention over which delegates to seat, but Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss organized a compromise under which no Democratic primary will be held at all.

Delegates will be chosen instead through joint caucuses of both factions.

> In California, the legislature settled on a hybrid system. The primary will be held at the congressional district level next June 8, but anyone getting more than 10% of the district vote will be accorded a share of the delegates, instead of the winner taking all of them.

This will probably help Wallace gain delegates, but as a national Democratic official complained: "They've eliminated California as an important primary.

A totally fragmented delegation will probably emerge, and a fragmented delegation is useless."

> In Wisconsin, Democratic Governor Patrick Lucey authorized the filing of a state lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee in an effort to protect Wisconsin's maverick custom of permitting registered voters of one party to vote in the primary of another. The new Democratic national party rules prohibit such crossover voting. A federal judge dismissed the suit, but the state is appealing.

> The big New York delegation (274 votes) will be selected in a way that typifies the confusion. Three-fourths of the delegates will be chosen in primary elections in congressional districts. In each of these 39 districts, the slate will give only the names of the delegates --not that of the candidate to whom they are committed. Governor Hugh Carey, moreover, is entering a slate of delegates uncommitted to any candidate. The other one-fourth of the delegates will be selected by Democratic State Chairman Patrick Cunningham, a Carey appointee. He is supposed to give each candidate the same percentage of delegates as each wins in the combined 39 districts--but he, not the candidate, names them, and they are required to stick with their assigned candidate through only one ballot at the national convention.

By the time of the final elections, including those of California, New Jersey and Ohio on June 8, many of the candidates may well have run out of the money that they are allowed to spend under the new campaign finance limitations. That law, enacted in 1974, restricts spending to $10 million (up to $5 million in federal funds to match what each candidate raises on his own). But the status of this law, too, is uncertain.

It has been challenged in the courts on the grounds that it gives an illegal advantage to incumbents, and its limitations on contributions and spending are said to be an unconstitutional limitation on free speech. The Supreme Court, which has permitted a preliminary dispersal of federal funds to eleven candidates, is expected to give its final decision on the entire law this month.

Out of this chaotic and highly unpredictable primary system, professional party leaders expect two results: 1) some potentially able but financially exhausted candidates will be knocked out, and 2) despite all of the agony for so many, no clear-cut winner may emerge.

The reforms were designed to give voters greater influence in the choice of a presidential nominee, but the very complexity of the new system may help to return that power to the legendary smoke-filled rooms of a brokered national convention.

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