Michigan and Florida have moved their primary elections up into
January, challenging Iowa and New Hampshire for the “right” to be
first. Democratic and Republican national committees say these
upstarts will be stripped of their delegates to next year’s
conventions (don’t bet on it). No matter, say the renegade states;
they want the “clout.”
Meanwhile Iowa and New Hampshire say they will keep moving ahead
on the calendar in order to be first and second with their
respective caucuses and primary. This may mean elections the day
before and the day after Thanksgiving, if not Halloween.
All this gives headaches to campaign planners and schedulers. No
matter how it turns out, the two nominees are likely to be known on
February 6, the day after 20 states hold primaries. By then the
total will be 30. If you think the roughly 18 month run-up to 2008
is tiresome and boring thus far, imagine what it will be like
between February and the conventions in July and August. There will
be almost nothing new for the two putative nominees to say. Thus,
cable news channels, with their need to fill 24 hours a day, will
expand minutiae and supposed “gaffes” into breathless “crises.”
Enough already, say three U.S. Senators in presenting what is
one of those rarities, a truly non-partisan idea. They are Senators
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Joseph Lieberman
(I-CT). Their reasoning is that the chaotic current situation —
compressing actual campaigning into about 60 days — has two things
wrong with it. First, most candidates have neither the time nor the
money to adequately campaign in so many states in such a short
time. This deprives voters in many places of an opportunity to get
to know the candidates on the ground. Secondly, the compression
factor, requiring so much “up front” money, will have the effect of
discouraging lesser-known candidates from making the race (those
year-ahead televised debates are only warm-ups).
What the Senate trio proposes, beginning with the 2012
presidential election, is a series of four regional primaries:
East, South, Midwest and West. The regions would draw straws to see
which goes first that year. The next time, 2016, the region that
went first in 2012 would drop to fourth place as each other region
moved up, and so forth.
The regional primaries or caucuses would be held on the first
Tuesday (or within six days of it) in March, April, May and June,
respectively for the regions.
This plan would make campaign costs more rational (some media
often cover good-sized regions and travel would be more
concentrated) and reducing the cost of campaigning is always
desirable. Television news coverage would be more concentrated
geographically so that the viewing public would get a better idea
of trends in a particular region.
The senators’ proposed legislation has one flaw: It keeps pride
of place for the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. While
we’re reforming the whole primary system it makes no sense (except
to political folks in Iowa and New Hampshire) to make these
exceptions to the plan. They have served their purpose — intense
on-the-ground contact with voters, magnified by national
television. However, a new regional primary system of the type
proposed would be fair to all states and would give voters four
months of concentrated campaign coverage reflecting the views of
voters one region after the other.
The concept of regional primaries is so sensible there will no
doubt be a great deal of opposition to it.
