Primaries
I find this positioning of the various states and their primary dates annoying but I suppose understandable. Living in a state that has had absolutely no say in the eventual nominees in my voting life, I do get pretty pissed off at the crap we hear from New Hampshirites and Iowans about retail politics and other such crap. Leaving it to two non-urbanized podunk states with focuses that have very little to do with the rest of us is ludicrous no matter how you slice it.The plans that have been put forward to have a rotating "first in region" state may make sense unless you're the last state in the your region, in which case you might not be the first state in your region until an election so far in the future that all of the current voters are dead. You also have to consider that all elections are not equal - if you were a Republican in 2004, being in an early primary really meant zilch. With the rotating scheme, your year in the front might coincide with a reelection year of a popular president so your next turn might not be for, what, 50 years? And how do they divide up the regions? Do Maine voters have the same issues as New Yorkers? Do California and New Mexico voters really worry about the same things?
I do hope the DNC has the balls to really unseat Florida's delegates, and Michigan's if they go forward as well. But I wish they REALLY had balls and would stop this stupidity of letting Iowa and New Hampshire have way too much of a say in who actually runs for President.
Labels: Politics
1 Comments:
I don't see why they bother with state-by-state primaries to begin with.
Have a national primary and let the party see who actually does have national support, or at the least a series of four or five regional primaries, preferably no more than two weeks apart.
A national primary might well give the richest candidates a serious advantage over the poor but personable guy who can wow 'em in one state without breaking the bank, but how likely is that guy to win the nomination anyway?
If that's the only problem, just publicly fund all elections and limit the campaigning to, say, three months. You can give speeches before that, but no public moneys are available before August 1st of the election year.
Honestly, I'm for anything that will shorten the election cycle. I'm tired of the second two years of a president's term being a de facto election season.
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