19th century Quote by Michael Beschloss

In the early days of the republic, the secretary of state was the heir apparent to the president. Presidents could easily hand-pick their party's…

— H. W. Brands

The modern primary era began in 1972 on the Democratic side and in 1976 on the Republican side. Since then, hundreds of major candidates…

— Harry Enten

When I was in the House for 16 years, I caucused with the Democrats.

— Bernie Sanders

There was a Republican majority of the Senate, and it tempered the nature of the nominations being made.

— Spencer Abraham

If you look at why do we end up with the nominees that we get often? It's because you have only a very small…

— Frank Bruni

Originally, the main purpose of the convention was to determine who the party would have as the presidential nominee and the vice-presidential nominee.

— Tom Brokaw

You have had presidential candidates over the last 30 years who would have had a very hard time getting nominated under the old system.…

— Michael Beschloss

My father joined our party because the Democrats in Jim Crow Alabama of 1952 would not register him to vote. The Republicans did.

— Condoleezza Rice

First of all, there's no mention of political parties in the Constitution, so you begin American history with not only no political conventions but…

— Michael Beschloss

Let me just say the rules are what they are in the Republican Party. You have to have X-number of delegates in order to…

— Marco Rubio

In 2000, Trump could have won the Reform Party nomination. I chaired his presidential exploratory committee.

— Roger Stone

There is a very long list of parties in this year's election, some of the parties I have never heard of.

— Thabo Mbeki