Geoffrey Cowan on the history of our presidential nominating process
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It was Teddy Roosevelt who seized on the idea of holding presidential primaries in 1912, telling the party bosses to "let the people rule." Voting in Minnesota begins tonight and this hour you'll hear why we use primaries, caucuses and conventions to decide who our presidential candidates will be.
Geoffrey Cowan is author of "Let the People Rule: Theodore Roosevelt and the Birth of the Presidential Primary." He's the president of the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. University of California president Janet Napolitano was the moderator at a February 2016 event at the Commonwealth Club of California.
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