Electoral Expedience vs. Ideological Purity (Group B)

Electoral Expedience v. Ideological Purity is an issue political parties have been dealing with during primary season since as early as 1800. The republican and the Democratic parties, when choosing a candidate to run in general election must decide whether or not they want to go with the candidate who will perform well in the election, or the candidate which maintains the parties’ respective ideals. The most notable elections in which this Electoral Expedience v. Ideological Purity has occurred is the elections of 1912, 2004 and 2008. In the election of 1912 two Republican candidates were pitted against each other, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Republican leaders had to decide whether or not to run a candidate who was conservative on party issues (Taft) or a candidate who they knew would do well in the General Election and garner the most electoral votes (Theodore Roosevelt). The old guard Republicans of this election decided to Run Taft as their candidate because he promoted party issues, and passed over Roosevelt because he seemed to be promoting more Progressive ideals, than Republican ones. The result of the Republican parties failure to pick Roosevelt as their candidate was the formation of the Progressive party in 1912 (Presidential Campaigns). In the 2004 election the choice of John Kerry over Howard Dean seemed to be primarily because of Kerry’s electoral Expedience “But supporting a candidate because he is “electable” is a coolly calculated and ephemeral political commitment. Any passion for Kerry, for example, seems to come less for the man himself than that he represents a vehicle to defeat Bush” (Moberg) http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/693/. Most political analyst felt during that during the 2004 campaign Dean represented more of the party ideals, but Kerry possessed the electability quality they were looking for. In 2008 the same can be seen in the Republican Party with Mike Huckabee and John McCain. A number of GOP analyst agreed that Huckabee embodied a large number of the Republican Ideals, they were looking for in a candidate but unlike McCain he had a very low potential for doing well in the polls. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/8003.html
In 1912, 2004, and 2008 (and many other elections) the choice of which candidate to run came down to whom the party believed would do well in the polls, which in some cases ended up being the candidate that wasn’t the strongest believer in the parties ideals.