Participants of the 1852 Democratic Convention nominated Franklin Pierce as the “dark horse candidate” for the presidency. However, he and running mate William R. King won the election in a landslide. The 1982 report presented by the National Commission on the Presidential Nominating Process, chaired by former Governor of Virginia A. Linwood Holton, Jr., examined the ways in which the two major political parties select their candidates for President.

The National Commission on the Presidential Nominating Process (1982)

Read the Commission's Final Report (Adobe Acrobat)

Chair:

A. Linwood Holton, Jr., Governor of Virginia, 1970-1974

Commissioners:

Dean Burch, Chairman, Federal Communications Commission, 1969-1974

William T. Coleman, Jr., U.S. Secretary of Transportation, 1975-1977 (Senior Counselor, O’Melveny & Myers)

William Frenzel, Member, U.S. House of Representatives from Minnesota, 1971-1991

Richard Gordon Hatcher, Mayor, Gary, Indiana, 1967-1987

Austin Ranney, American Enterprise Institute, Senior Staff, 1975-1985

Robert S. Strauss, U.S. Trade Representative, 1977-1979; U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union & Russian Federation, 1991 (Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld)

Anne Wexler, Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce, 1977-1978; Assistant to the President 1978-1981

Commission Director:

Kenneth W. Thompson, Director of the Miller Center, 1978-1998