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Unruh's delegation has glamor and diversity: Actress Shirley MacLaine, Singer Andy Williams, Athlete Rafer Johnson, Mrs. Milton Berle—plus a dozen students, including Richard Raznikov, only 22, a budding political scientist who got into politics when the Citizens for Kennedy were impressed by his paper on the feasibility of denying the nomination to an incumbent President. 'This delegation is about as representative as any you can find," Unruh says. "There are very few major campaign contributors, but a lot of party activists and the more general type of activists who aren't tied to any party. As things stand now, none of the candidates could really turn them on."
While some delegations are more representative than others, the people are not fully represented, as the marked underparticipation of women and minority groups quickly proves. Even if delegates did mirror the electorate, the old rules of party discipline would probably blur the image. Most Democratic delegations, for example, follow the handcuffing unit rule, under which the majority point of view is binding on all members of a delegation. What most delegates actually represent is clear: a consensus of the activists who toil at year-round politics. These people have at least a presumptive claim to special qualifications—as well as the defense that politics is open to any American who cares enough to participate in not only the presidential world series, but also the obscure games that lead to it.
Reformers yearn to revamp the delegate selection system—if nothing else, to make it a real system. Some advocate a national primary; others urge at least uniform legislation in all 50 states for the selection of delegates by direct popular vote. Yet such schemes might further boost the country's soaring campaign costs and unfairly favor the richest candidates. Moreover, since parties are inevitably dominated by activists, it may well be that delegations selected by open primaries are no more representative than those frankly chosen by party leaders responding to the pressures within their organizations.
In fact, the very flux of this surprising election year has forced party leaders to respond in ways that may open up the conventions a good deal more than has been predicted. Though California's Democratic delegation was chosen entirely by primary election, for example, the death of Robert Kennedy has led to a series of resignations and reappointments—a new balance of the original Kennedy slate with McCarthyites and even Humphrey supporters. New York's Democratic leaders confront hot protests from underrepresented McCarthy forces, to say nothing of Negroes and Puerto Ricans. In response, State Chairman John J. Burns has already persuaded some delegates to make way for replacements. Though such adjustments may be minor, the striking fact is that politicians often characterized as bosses are redressing imbalances following open primaries.
What the People Want