on her book the perfect primary you write that the nomination process there was the rule instituted by national and state parties and strategic behaviors of candidates, the actions of campaign professionals and campaign contributors, the involvement of the citizen activists and state and national wall. can you break that down for us? >> the most recent change is when the democratic party changed the rules were created rules for the selection of delegates which led many states to switch from whatever process they were using in the presidential primaries. we got a big proliferation of the parties in the 1970s which then changed the process to more of a national process where the candidates that do well in early primaries can then do better in

the subsequent primaries when you start watching the race unfold across the nation. >> how is it that if you do well in an early -- first of all what are the changes that they did? >> there were no rules how they were selected before then so sometimes they were appointed and sometimes many of them were appointed before the year and there were only about 15 or 16 parties at the time and even then, the connection between the vote in the primary may not have directly related to the delegate that would be in the convention so the rules are that the process had to be timely and had to be open to all democrats which meant that the event had to be publicized and following

the rules if there was a caucus to conform to the new rules. >> why did they make the changes? >> the convention where it was a disaster so that was the convention where there was the opposition of mccarthy and the kennedy delegates felt they had been shortchanged in their ability to get support at the convention. there was fighting on the floor and there were riots outside. so, one of the last things he did this to say they were going to develop the commission to look into the rules for the selection. >> the republicans didn't do much with the rules until around 2000. they were just more likely to lead without the mistakes.

they could have the caucuses were a state convention. generally the process became more alike to switch to. >> professor, when were the first primaries ever held in the political system? >> in the early 19 hundreds the big presidential primary was in 1912 because that was the year patty roosevelt decided to be president again. it wasn't enough to get him the nomination, so he stopped and created the bonus party that

resulted it kind of put a hold on it for now. when did the smoke-filled back rooms fadeaway? >> at fadeaway not so much because of presidential primaries.

it may not have been a formal following but it seemed to have a lot of influence. there's also more outside pressures from interest groups. the media provided more coverage with radio and television, so that sort of limited the abilities of the backroom deals. >> the early victory helped the later victories, how is that? ..

they are discussing the candidates and having that grass roots democracy is now a little bit more that the people come there with their preferences pretty firm it is very drawn out is just the first thing. it doesn't actually select delegates.

in the state convention. state convention. does the system work. does the system work. it works as will is anything we could think of or get past right now. you do get the voters voice through the primary. the people that are intensely involved in politics the elite endorsements of governors it's very informally we get a lot of different voices that come into the process. it doesn't always produce a smooth result but probably one that taps and to those things. those things. the national party has a

little bit of a difficulty controlling this. the parties have been weakened by a lot of things that have happened in the past. it is a weight that they weaken the parties. with the economic benefits from being part of the party process. the state laws had regulated this. because of some of these. there is a lot of competition for the parties. there are consultants who will advise the candidates. there is now social media i'm not sure anybody controls the message on that. the parties that have been weakened but it's not just because of this. >> why would one state hold a

closed primary in the other one hold an open primary. it has a lot to do with tradition and going back to the early 19 hundreds when the laws were passed. they have the stronger political parties. they adopted a closed primary to restrict participation to people who are registered and other states where the progressive movement with a bit stronger they were more likely to adopt an open primary. and anyone can vote. although the laws don't had as much effect on the composition of the primary as many people think. they look pretty much the same. >> barbara, is the author of this book the imperfect primary.

with that u.s. presidential nomination politics. what is an oddity. it is odd to have primaries and caucuses. the fact that there is a lot of people trying to influence what is happening national parties in the state parties. most countries don't use primary elections. why do they use superdelegates to get into the process. usually an elected official sometimes a party later and it was developed in the 1980s by the democrats in response to what happened after the initial reform. when they did the initial reform they found out that there convention and 72 and 76 didn't have the traditional senators or representatives of

government being part of that process. they wanted to bring it back in the voice of those individuals who traditionally have some influence. they developed those in the 1980s. since that time they have changed the number of people who are super delegates but they do have the ability to decide on their own which candidate they want to support. >> why did you write this book? >> they try to explain how to where they got today. and why they might have some oddities to them. and just to give people a little bit more historical context and a little bit more background so they can understand why we have what we have today. how are they chosen prior to the 19 hundreds. they were chosen by a

convention where states sent their delegates. they didn't have much information about what was happening and so they would go through a series of rollcall of votes. until they got that required number of delegates to win. even him like and was nominated on the third ballot. there was a democratic convention which went over 100 ballots. there could be a more extended race. everything was happening within the convention there was not a lot of outside influence. they were not even supposed to generally campaign. it was more of an interloper to the convention. what potential changes or do you do you see on the horizon

for how we select our candidates. they had been tinkering with the rules all along. the republicans between 2012 and 2016 made it so that that they would reflect that initial caucus and not some of the things that would happen after the fact. they tinkered with that. they lowered that a little bit. you might see summer and that tinkering. a widespread reform is not very likely because it so difficult to do that and nobody really controls the entire process. that could implement that kind of reform. >> your watching book tv on c-span two the imperfect primary is her book.

book tv takes hundreds of programs throughout the country all year long. on monday we are at busboys and poets in washington dc where georgetown university law professor will examine the impact of the case. it ended bans on internet -- interracial marriage. we are headed to the mercator center. for financial times, spirit with his current states of liberal democracy around the world. it will be out west in san francisco california. adam will report on the growth of huber. also that evening in the nation's capital science magazine will recall the five mass extinctions. there's a we are in new york city for former district

attorney james is iran's thought. the roosevelt reading possible. that is a look at some of the events that we will be covering this week. many of these events are open for the public. look for them to air in the near future. [inaudible] good afternoon.