The primary question

...Robert Goodman, his presentation to the Executive Committee will undoubtedly pose the most formidable challenge yet faced in the Democratic party's attempt to constrain the fractionalization of the delegate selection process...

...But in a public statement on January 5, 1984 the bishop killed that last hope...

...But this has also had the apparently unanticipated consequence of "front loading" the 1984 nominating process...

...Then in 1983 it was Agnes Mansour in Michigan...

...Many Democrats hope that that their three-month "window" for delegate selection -- even with exceptions for Iowa and New Hampshire -- will lower the considerable costs of extended contests...

...Key) a "caricature" of the general electorate -- primary voters approach issues differently from and are demographically less representative of the general electorate, as well as of the Democratic rank-and-file...

...Anticipating this, Violet had earlier commenced the process of seeking dispensation from her vows...

...She is prepared to commit civil (or should it be called "ecclesiastical...

...This committee would have been formed in any case, but its establishment emphasizes the potential seriousness of the situation...

...Reagan signed papers certifying that he intends to seek the Republican nomination for president in the Illinois and New Hampshire primaries...

...Morancy, described by a local newspaper as being "sweet as molasses and tough as nails," candidly admits that she will be in clear violation of canon law...

...She contends that the prohibition on public-officeseeking by religious is a retreat from the principles of Vatican II and Pope Paul VI's 1971 encyclical, A Call to...

...Religious as well as priests were prohibited from seeking office...

...The committee members are participants in the selection process for their states' delegates to the 1984 Republican convention...

...JEREMIAH BARUCH (Jeremiah Baruch is the pseudonym of a Washington writer with a position in goverment...

...Many Democrats, still feeling the bruises of the Carter presidency, would probably agree that this assessment applies particularly to their party...

...but it appears unlikely that the Iowa/New Hampshire date dispute will be resolved before the January 20 meeting -- at the earliest: To add to the pressures, a Rule 19(c) committee (to run an alternative delegate system in non-complying states) has been appointed and is organizing...

...An even higher turnout is predicted this February for Iowa's 550,000 registered Democrats (and for any other voters willing to register as Democrats at the caucuses) -- thus meriting the description of Iowa's caucus system as a primary in disguise...

...David R. Carlin, Jr., is a Rhode Island state senator who teaches sociology at the University of Rhode Island...

...Reagan...

...disobedience in order to defend what she calls the "validity of the political ministry...

...whereas the earlier contests were sparsely attended (40,000 in '76), Kennedy's challenge gained such attention that 100,000 Democrats showed up at the caucuses (30,000 more than expected by the Kennedy camp, almost all of whom came out to vote against him...

...Complications arose when neighboring states attempted to get part of the media attention, and the not inconsequential political benefits, that have for so long been New Hampshire's reward for having the nation's first primary...

...But as the clock continues to tick, it will be increasingly hard to change the rules of the game -- particularly given the interrelationship of primaries and state laws...

...The bishop made no further statements, and no punitive action was taken against her...

...Last November, however, the revised code of canon law went into effect, and the ambiguities Arlene Violet had hung bet hat on earlier disappeared...

...Can religion -- which the classic French sociologist Durkheim once defined as "having to do with sacred things, that is, things set apart and forbidden" -- survive and flourish without a class of sacred persons, that is, persons who are "set apart and forbidden...

...Long-shot" candidates such as Jesse Jackson see the obvious advantage to the front-runners (who will have the resources to cover all the races) and are doing what they can to curtail that advantage...

...Matters are complicated 'by :the "memorandum of understanding" signed by the six Democratic candidates in October (Reubin Askew declined and Jesse Jackson was not in the race at the time) that they would participate in the Iowa caucus on February 20 and the NeW Hampshire primary February 28...

...This mildly annoying situation does underscore the close relationship between sundry state election laws and state party rules and campaign strategies, and more important, the relationship between the presidential nominating process and the media...

...Christianity, she argues, often requires intense involvement on the part of religious in worldly affairs...

...Its precinct caucuses have, of course, been the subject of increasing media attention -- of political benefit to George McGovern in '72 and '80 and to Jimmy Carter in '76...

...This turnout exceeded the participation rate in a number of primaries in 1980 -- four states had a combined party participation of less than 15 percent of their voting age population...

...Of course, this ever growing participation rate is due to the increasing media coverage given to Iowa's kickoff status for the Democrats...

...Maine has scheduled its municipal caucuses (by both parties) for March 4. Although this date does not conform to the national Democratic delegate selection rules, the DNC has approved the change in recognition of Maine's one hundred-and-fifty-year history of town meetings held to select presidential convention delegates...

...This situation had been compounded by the media's highlighting early primary and caucus winners, drowning the voices of the competition in the blare of a bandwagon that may play well all the way to the convention floor but which gets quite tired by election day and is finally too exhausted to cover the distance between the White House and the Capitol...

...Following the mandate of the 1980 national convention a Commission on Presidential Nominations, chaired by North Carolina Governor James B. Hunt, Jr., suggested changes in the delegate selection process that were approved by the Democratic midterm conference in June 1982...

...The lingering Democratic fear is that the electorate will also come to see the Democrats emphasizing "expressiveness" to the detriment of effectiveness -- and vote Republican...

...Jackson is also protesting the so-called "winner-take-all" or "loophole" rule that is being used in seven important states -which allows a candidate, in effect, to gain all the delegates from a congressional district if the delegates running under his or her name receive a plurality of the votes...

...Washington report IIIIII PRIMARY QUESTION WHO'S ON FIRST...

...Among these was a restriction of delegate selection to the period between the second Tuesday in March and the first Tuesday in June...

...She emphatically disagrees with canon law when it says the status of priests and religious entails "separation from the world...

...Now it's Arlene Violet and Liz Morancy in Rhode Island...

...The inherent tension in the dual role of political parties is brought to the fore: whether the purpose is expression of various shades of opinions, with party rules shaped to optimize differences, or governing the nation, with the rules established to optimize cohesion...

...By the end of March over forty percent of the delegates will be selected...

...Moreover, Vermont, not to be outdone, has scheduled an advisory presidential preference primary for March 6. As a result,' the Republican-controlled New Hampshire legislature, pointing to a law which holds, in part, that its primary be scheduled on the Tuesday immediately preceding a similar election in any other state, moved its primary date to February 28...

...Iowa Democrats, in turn, noting that national party rules allow them to schedule their precinct caucuses eight days before New Hampshire, have moved their date to February 20...

...In 1982 Sister Arlene Violet -- a Mercy sister for over two decades and a lawyer -- was the Republican candidate for Rhode Island attorney general...

...Her view implies, as she readily acknowledges, an abolition of the qualitative distinction Pope John Paul II seems bent on enforcing -- the distinction between clerics (including religious) and laity, between consecrated persons and secular persons...

...Of course, there is always the possibility that he could remove himself from consideration after he formally declares his candidacy before the klieg lights...

...The Republican nominating process already began, in fact, with the election of Arizona and Arkansas Republican commit tee members in September 1982...

...Commonweal: 40...

...DNC Chairman Charles T. Manatt had designated party treasurer Paul G. Kirk to find a way out of the impasse...

...The question remains among party regulars whether participation in primaries will continue to be dominated by (in the words of political scientist V.O...

...I T'S OFFICIAL: Ronald Reagan is running for reelection...

...It may have, but the item was probably buried as it was in the New York Times, in the middle of the paper -- next to Andy Griffith calling upon us to relax with the "new" AT & T. White House and campaign officials claimed that this certification was "to keep his options open" and that it did not preclude the possibility that Reagan could remove himself later from the presidential race...

...The DNC so far has been steadfast in refusing to recognize the new dates and in attempting to hold the state parties to the national party's rules...

...Press secretary James Lake of Reagan-Bush '84, the reelection organization, said of the president: "In his view, he is not a candidate until he stands up before the American people and says he is a candidate...

...The testimony of history seems to be that it cannot...

...On December 21, to meet state filing deadlines, Mr...

...Although the number of Democratic delegates selected on the basis of presidential primaries has been diminished from 1980 (by about 71 percent), these delegates are still the preponderant factor in the national convention...

...His recommendation was that the Democratic Executive Committee reverse itself and approve the earlier dates by January 1. As of this writing, the DNC has not altered its opposition to the date change...

...Overall, this concern reflected the simple conclusion of many Democrats that the presidential nominating process was taking just too long a time...

...However, given the momentum from his success in obtaining Syrian release of Lt...

...But this task, in turn, points to the dilemma long ago enunciated by Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky (PresidentialElections, Sixth Edition, 1984): namely, that the Democratic party's nominating process has emphasized far too much the useful function of advancing the interest of factions at the cost of consensus-building...

...The Democrats, having reformed their reform's reform, are back to 26 primaries furnishing 63 percent of the delegate total...

...Claiming discrimination, Jackson is particularly seeking to alter the Hunt Commission's "threshold" requirement that a certain percentage of the vote be won, usually twenty percent, before delegates are allotted in proportion to the candidate's share of the vote...

...Her plan is to resign from the Sisters of Mercy before formally declaring her candidacy and then, once her political career is over, to rejoin...

...Iowa is the first state to get the campaign rolling for the Democrats...

...Politics now center on attracting voters weakly attached to party "rather than mobilizing the party faithful...

...Hawaii's Republicans are presently scheduled to hold their delegate selection precinct meetings on January 24, and Iowa's Republican precinct caucuses will be held on January 19...

...Writing one of a series of good essays on the presidential nominating system that appeared in the Fall '83 issue of the American Political Science Association's journal, Robert Nakamura has observed that the Democratic reforms have been in part a response to, rather than a source of, declining strength in party voter identification, instability of party coalition, and increases in issue-based movements...

...Completing her third term as a Democratic member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives, she has concentrated on issues concerning women, minorities, and poor people, attempting, as she puts it, "to make private pain a public issue...

...If Violet's situation is the more interesting from the point of view of state politics, Sister Elizabeth Morancy's situation is far more interesting from the point of view of ecclesiastical politics...

...DAVID R. CARUN, JR...

...The Democratic Executive Committee's upcoming deliberations were even further complicated when Chairman Manatt 27 January 1984:39 agreed to allow Jesse Jackson to present his demands for changes in the delegates selection rules...

...But Liz Morancy, mindful that history isn't finished yet and that it may someday submit some different testimony, bets otherwise and is staking her very self on it...

...Action...

...The present built-in need of contenders to express their candidacy in terms of job security, nuclear freeze, feminism, or racism does not lend itself readily to a cohesive public policy...

...Morancy is forty-two years old, a Sister of Mercy from the age of 18, a former teacher, currently a social worker among Hmong refugees in Providence, and one of Time magazine's "Fifty Faces for the Future" in a 1979 feature story on America's leaders...

...There remained the exceedingly slender possibility that Bishop Gelineau might exercise his fight to dispense her from the prohibition...

...Mondale -- and Jackson's questioning of the legitimacy of the delegate selection rules are no doubt motivated by his long-shot position at this point...

...Violet argued that the canon was ambiguous and that it wasn't clear "clerics" was meant to include nuns...

...Democratic party regulars felt a need to rectify the party rules which made possible the 1972 convention's high proportion of delegates with unrepresentative stances on specific issues and low commitment to the party and the 1976 selection of a candidate who was independent of formal party organizations and thereby suffered a consequent loss of poli.tical accountability...

...Arlene Violet has an aggressive legal and political style, which has won her the (probably sexist) nicknames o f " Arlene Violent" and "Attila the Nun...

...The Executive Committee of the DNC will meet on January 20 and no doubt will discuss the matter further...

...Although defeated, her showing was deemed a respectable one, and Republican leaders soon began predicting a rerun in 1984...

...Polsby and Wildavsky rightly point out that the issue is one of proportion, but conclude: "As our system is presently structured, the danger is that expressiveness will overwhelm effectiveness...

...It brings to mind the irony that candidate and candid have the same Latin root...

...Reagan's wish is that the country wait until his Commonweal: 38 formal declaration on January 29, and the press seems to be going along with his"suspenseful" scenario...

...Declaring that he is a candidate to the citizens of Illinois and New Hampshire apparently is insufficient for Mr...

...The bishop takes a dim view of this de facto leave of absence, rejecting the concept that a religious could "abandon that life 'temporarily' to serve in a public office...

...Two exceptions were granted for Iowa and New Hampshire -- in direct recognition of their coveted roles in leading the party's nominating contests -- which would allow Iowa to hold its precinct caucuses on February 27, and New Hampshire to conduct its primary on March 6, 1984...

...He notes further that the task of the Democrats is to mobilize the "weakly attached" who vote for the party inorder to advance other goals (e.g., those with strong racial or ethnic identities voting to enhance group interests, or persons with material ties to programs such as the elderly or teachers) rather than out of party loyalty...

...Bishop of Providence Louis E. Gelineau issued a statement saying the candidacy was in violation of the canon law prohibiting clerics from political activity...

...Here, I think, is the fundamental issue in the Morancy case...

...Super-Tuesday," March 13, will have six primaries and four caucuses and provide the side benefit of preventing the networks from focusing on a single state's election...

...Her intention is to run for reelection this year without either seeking dispensation from the canonical prohibition or resigning from the Sisters of Mercy...

...So why hasn't your newspaper run the story...

...Some may find it amusing that the "anti-reform" Republicans, by leaving their state parties the maximum local choice, are left with 35 primaries providing 78 percent of the Republican delegates...

...Obviously these rules aid and abet front-runners -- notably Mr...

...Before Reagan's January 29 formal declaration, the Republican nominating process will be well on its way...

...This status is seen by the Iowa state Democrats as in jeopardy and has been an increasing point of fricUon With the Democratic National Committee (DNC...

...Michigan's Republican county conventions select delegates on January 11, and North Dakota's Republican delegates will be chosen through a caucus procedure the first step of which will take place between January 15 and March 15...

...Carter also achieved victory in Iowa's 1980 caucuses but at a much higher cost...

...Barbara Waiters and John Chancellor must also be included...

...But this style, combined with her demonstrated talent and much more ample campaign funds than she had in 1982, will make her a serious contender in November...

...T HE DEMOCRATIC efforts tO centralize and maintain party control of the nominating process stems, in part, from a reaction to the 1972 and 1976 national conventions (just as the democratizing reforms of the McGovern/Fraser Commission were a reaction to the 1968 convention which had nominated a candidate, Hubert Humphrey, who had not won a single primary...