Although not the favored candidate, Franklin Pierce won the 1852 election. He did not receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term as President. Instead, the Democrats turned to James Buchanan, a formed secretary of state during the James Polk administration. In a 1982 report, the National Commission on the Presidential Nominating Process, chaired by former Governor of Virginia A. Linwood Holton, Jr., examined the way in which the two major political parties select their candidates.

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