How Did Super Tuesdays Get So Super?
and why they've backfired
2008-02-05
By Eric Easter

As excited as the nation seems to about having down to the wire horse races in both the Democratic and Republican primaries, the truth is that by now, this race was supposed to be over.  If party leaders had their way, there would be one candidate on either side, with the also-rans long gone and out of the way.

But like most grand schemes to change American behavior, Super Tuesdays haven’t worked out quite as planned.

Most observers agree Super Tuesdays were an outgrowth of the Democrats losing the 1980 presidential election to Ronald Reagan.

The idea that Senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy would run against Jimmy Carter, the incumbent  president in his own party, had already angered many powerful party leaders.  Nevertheless, Kennedy amassed considerable support, though not enough to win the nomination. Kennedy’s perceived lack of grace in losing (think Bill Belichick after the Super Bowl) was seen as splitting loyalties and dampening eventual turnout, leading to a Reagan victory. 

The Dems would entertainment none of that nonsense again.

Thus the first run of state primaries known as “ Super Tuesday” in 1984, was designed as an attempt to move to a unified party faster by forcing those candidates with less money and less broad-based support out of the race sooner, thus allocating support and resources to a frontrunner much sooner in the process.

In theory, the fix worked. There were actually three Super Tuesdays in that year and there was a clear frontrunner. The only problem: The frontrunner was Walter Mondale. 

The plan worked to shake out those with fewer resources, but steered it to a candidate who had money but limited voter appeal.

In 1988, party leaders tried again.  Hoping to steer the race to someone with more appeal to Southern voters, Super Tuesday in 1988 grouped many of the Southern states in one day.

Nice plan, except those pesky voters threw a monkey wrench in the works by choosing multiple candidates across multiple states, with Jesse Jackson winning more than his opponents. In the end, the Democratic convention saw another fractious convention that was seen as partly responsible for the Dukakis general election loss.

By the presidential elections of the 1990’s, Super Tuesdays, in a variety of combinations, became a standard. The Democrats, fighting an uphill battle against entrenched Republican presidents, were less worried about choosing a specific candidate than getting the message clear and concise, and embodied in one individual early in the race.

By then, however, the Super Tuesday theory was largely moot. As media markets grew more expensive and the cost of campaigning more substantial, Iowa and New Hampshire did the job that Super Tuesdays were meant to do – effectively cutting the primary season to two states.

Super Tuesdays now are a reaction to that dynamic. Powerful states with broad concerns and diverse demographics have become reasonably incensed at the outsized influence of Iowa and New Hampshire. The race to move up earlier in the game is now as much about ego as manipulation.

This time around, the plan may work out for those larger states, but not for party leadership. Even though the current shortened primary schedule was designed by Bill and Hillary Clinton’s personal DNC chief, Terry McAuliffe, Barack Obama’s war chest and internet fundraising apparatus all but guarantees that there will be two candidates in the race for the long haul.

There’s still a chance it may whittle down to one person before the convention,  but there’s a strong chance it might not be the one the system intended.

Eric Easter is Chief of Digital Strategy for Johnson Publishing. He writes about politics, culture and technology.