this has been a stimulating conversation. thank you. >> professor come in your book be in perfect primary, you write the current presidential nomination process is a hodgepodge of past reform movements, rules instituted by national and state parties, strategic behaviors of candidates, the actions of campaign professionals and campaign contributors, the involvement of citizen activists and state and national laws.

can you break that down for us? >> guest: probably the most recent change came in the 1970s when the democratic party changed the rules for the delegates which led many states to switch from whatever process they were using from president to primary comes with a big corporation of presidential primaries in the 1970s that changed the process to more of a national process where the candidates that do well in the early primaries do better in subsequent primaries that you start watching the race unfold across the nation. >> host: how is it if you do well in the primary what are the changes the party did? >> guest: there were no fools how they did so sometimes they were appointed and sometimes they were like local party officials. many of them were appointed

before the election. and even there, the connection may not directly related to the kind of delegates who would be sent to the convention. so the rules were the process would have to be timely in the year and it had to be focused for the event to be publicized. it's the easiest way to conform to the new rules. why did they make the changes? >> guest: the 1968 convention where it was a disaster. so that was the convention that hubert humphrey won but there was the opposition of eugene mccarthy and robert kennedy

delegates. they felt they had been shortchanged in their ability to get their support at the convention. there was flooding on the lower -- fighting on the floor so they were going to develop a commission to look for the rules for the delegate selection. >> guest: republicans didn't do much with the rules. they were going to leave it up to the states and they needed. or they could have caucuses or a state convention. but generally, the process kind of came to life. >> host: when were the first primaries ever held in the system?

>> guest: in the early 19 hundreds, so the presidential primary was 1912 that conducted the disaster. they were getting the support from the traditional players in the party and roosevelt won most of the primaries but it wasn't enough to get him the nomination so he stopped out and created the party that resulted in the republicans losing the presidential race. it's kind oit kind of put a holr a while. the presidential primaries were not until after world war ii. they were around the state in the presidential primaries but they were always connected to the delegate selection.

so they were not important until after it became important. >> host: when did the smoke-filled back rooms fadeaway? >> guest: the early 19 hundreds not so much because of the presidential primaries, but because of other outside influences. or, we started to get good public opinion polling in the 1930s or so and since the aim of the convention is to nominate a popular presidential candidate, they often followed the polls. it may not have been a formal polling tha but it had a lot of influence. there's also more outside pressure from interest groups. the media provided more coverage so that sort of limited the abilities of the backroom deal. >> host: early on you said it helped later victories. >> guest: that is a classic

momentum idea. so when iowa or new hampshire gives a lot of media attention it will get them more campaign contributions. the national polling smoke a lot and this should help them win in subsequent primaries. sometimes this momentum can rehearse. you might think of that as somewhat classically momentum but the ability to overtake hillary clinton in 2008 was a sort of switch from the front runner in the beginning to one that went over to obama as the primary continued. >> host: what is the philosophy behind the caucus rather than primary? >> guest: the caucuses the older format and the idea is that you have people coming into a community center or library or gymnasium. and supposedly, discussing the

candidates and how they met kind of a grassroots democracy is now the preferences that are pretty firm, but it is a way to socialize with your neighbors and perhaps do that process. but it's very drawn out so it's the first thing. >> host: does the system work? >> guest: it works as well as anything else we can think of right now so it does bring lots of different kind of voices.

members of the house make for those individuals so we get a lot of different voices that come into the process. it doesn't produce a smooth result but probably passing into at least some of those voices. >> host: has it weakened the party? >> guest: it depends what you're talking about. the national parties have a little bit of difficulty controlling the process. but then again, the state parties perhaps had a bout of influenza in the past as well. so, the parties have been weakened by lots of things that happened in the past. the patronage weekend the parties economic benefits from

being a part of the party process. the state walls have regulated the parties pretty heavily and there's lots of competition for the parties and consultants that will advise the candidates and the social media. the parties have been weakened but it's not just because of this. >> host: why would one state hold a closed primary if another was an open primary? >> guest: it has a lot to do with tradition and going back to the 19 hundreds when the law was passed. the states that have the minorities of a close primary to restrict participation to people who were registered.

others where the progressive movement was stronger or more likely to adopt an open primary. although they do not have as much effect on the primary as many people think. >> host: the author of this book be i the imperfect primary commodities, biases and strengths of the u.s. presidential nomination politic what is an oddity? >> guest: it is odd to have the primaries and caucuses open and some people being closed and the fact that there's lots of people influencing what's happening in the national parties in the state parties and campaigns.

>> host: why do they bring superdelegates into the process? >> guest: the superdelegate is an elected official, sometimes a party leader. it was in 1980 by the democrats and it responds to what happened after the reform and the conventions in 72 and 76 didn't have the traditional senators or representatives of governors being made a part of the process. so they wanted to bring back the voice of those individuals who traditionally have some influence, so they developed those in the 1980s and since that time the delegates do have the ability to decide which candidate they want to support regardless what happens.

>> host: why did you write this book and what was the goal? >> guest: to explain how we got where we are today and talk about some of the suggested reforms imply they also might have some oddities and to give people a little more historical context and background so they can understand why we have what we have today. >> host: our candidates chosen prior? >> guest: they are chosen by a convention where state delegates are usually regular and they didn't have much information about what was happening. they got the required number of the delegates to win.

there was a democratic convention so there could be a more extended race. everything was happening within the convention. there wasn't a lot of outside influences for the presidential nominee. whawith potential changes do you see on the horizon? >> guest: the republicans between 2012 and 2016 made it so they were selected across the states to reflect that initial caucus vote and not so much some of the things that would happen after the fact.

you might see some more of that. the widespread reform isn't very likely because it controls the entire process that could implement that reform. >> host: we've been talking with university of arizona professor the imperfect primary now on book tv, jesse peterson discuss it in teaching her youth. this program contains language