Primary Politics

Elaine C . Kamarck is a senior fellow in Governance Studies and director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. She is also a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Kamarck is an expert on American electoral politics, government innovation, and government reform in the United States and developing countries. Her previous books include Why Presidents Fail and How They Can Succeed Again and How Change Happens—or Doesn’t: The Politics of U.S. Public Policy. She served in the Clinton-Gore White House from 1993 to 1997.

• Table of ContentsPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1: The Good Old Days?: When Parties Controlled Nominations and Primaries Were to Be Avoided at All CostsChapter 2: Sequence as Strategy: How Jimmy Carter “Got It” and Taught Subsequent Presidential Candidates the New Rules of the RoadChapter 3: The Fight to the First: Iowa, New Hampshire and moreChapter 4: Proportional Representation: Why Democrats Use It and Republicans Don’tChapter 5: Devil in the Details: How the Delegate Count Shapes Modern Nominating CampaignsChapter 6: Do Conventions Matter Anymore?: Why No One Could Stop TrumpChapter 7: The Loss of Peer Review and what it means for democracyNotesIndex

With her updated title Primary Politics, Elaine Kamarck has provided an indispensable guide to the U.S. system of selecting our presidential candidates. This book explains the evolution of our primary system, the effect it has on presidential candidates, and vice versa. Primary Politics is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how our presidential candidates reach the general election.