The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations

Over the last several election cycles, front-loading has emerged as the single most-criticized features of the American presidential selection process. Where state primaries and caucuses were once spread out over a period of three or four months, most are now crammed into a four- or five-week interval at the very beginning of the delegate selection calendar. The system that results has been called "absurdly accelerated," "dangerously irrational," "warped and virtually mindless," and a "parody of participatory democracy." Such criticism notwithstanding, there has been surprisingly little systematic analysis of why front-loading occurred and what it is doing to American presidential politics.To fill that gap, William G. Mayer and Andrew E. Busch have written the first book on the front-loading problem. They provide a comprehensive examination of the entire issue: what front-loading is, when and why it developed, and what consequences it has for the nomination process as a whole. Most importantly, Mayer and Busch present a detailed analysis of all the major proposals for coping with front-loading and of the political and constitutional obstacles to reform. While they conclude that there are no easy solutions to this complex problem, they point out the general direction that reform efforts should take and urge that the political parties be given the principal responsibility for enacting and implementing these changes.

William G. Mayer is associate professor of political science at Northeastern University. His books include The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2004 (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). Andrew E. Busch is an associate professor of political science at the University of Denver. He is the author of Outsiders and Openness in the Presidential Nominating System (University of Pittsburgh Press).