Political parties make elections chaotic

Here's a challenge for you — explain the logic behind the political nominating process we Americans use to pick our presidential candidates to a European. (Or to most Americans, for that matter.)

Believe me, it's difficult.

That's because no one sat down and designed it; it just happened. The Constitution, which lays down the structure of the rest of our government, offers no guidance on this vital part of our current political process.

It's not because the authors of the Constitution did not spend time thinking about how the president should be chosen. As I have pointed out in a previous column, they thought about it a lot and, toward the end of the Constitutional Convention, adopted what they considered a very solid system for electing a president, called the Electoral College. What happened?

The emergence of political parties. The first formal one was created by Thomas Jefferson, a sin for which Abagail Adams never forgave him. Political parties took over state legislatures, which meant they took over the process of naming electors, which meant that electors lost their independent status. With that, choosing a president became the sole province of party rules, state law and tradition. The result has been near chaos.

Party Rules — the parties pick their presidential candidates at national conventions, and party rules determine how they are run. These have often been changed from one election to the next.

State law — delegates have been chosen in differing ways, varying from state to state. In the recent half century, however, most states require that delegates to the national conventions be chosen in a primary election. The result is that, just as electors have lost their independence, so have delegates who are "bound" to primary results by state law.

Tradition — Iowa's caucuses come first because they were the first to hold them. New Hampshire's is the first primary because it always has been.

Chaos — who ordained that Iowa, which launched Jimmy Carter, or New Hampshire, which resurrected John McCain, should have the power to create political momentum just because their state legislatures passed a law? Anxious to get a bigger say in the outcome for themselves, other states have rescheduled the times of their primaries and some have banded together to create regional primaries by holding theirs on the same day: the Western Primary and Super Tuesday.

The result is a "system" that is expensive, hugely time consuming and often distortive. It is also exhausting, for candidates and voters alike.