The Primary Purpose of Presidential Primaries

The article discusses presidential primary elections in the United States, their place in the American democracy, and various ideas for how they should be reformed. The process of nominating presidential candidates is discussed, as are widely held views that the process should be as democratic as possible, and what that means in terms of democratic theory. Other topics discussed include: optimal characteristics in a political candidate; the relative merits of simultaneous versus sequential primaries; the role of Iowa and New Hampshire as hosts of the first-in-the-nation primaries; and the roles of delegates and superdelegates.