“As parties began to develop around the turn of the 19th century, you had party nominees for President nominated in caucuses made up of party members in Congress.”
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Oftentimes during the period in which conventions really did business, you had situations where the delegates were divided and you would have ballot after ballot before there was a final nominee.
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The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.
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So the result was that as one approached a political convention for most of the 19th century and for most of the 20th century until the 1960's, part of the drama was the fact that you didn't know ultimately who was going to be the nominee at the end of that convention week.
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To people who remember JFK's assassination, JFK Jr. will probably always be that boy saluting his father's coffin.
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The Founding Fathers would be sorry to see that America had become so divided and factionalized.
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