Reply #11: The more it costs to run in the primary, the fewer candidates you get [View All]

[AlGore-08.com]

The more it costs, the less likely it is that grassroots, non-establishment candidates can even enter the primary, let alone win the nomination. Instead, major donors will control who runs and who doesn't run and what the platform is - - and what promises winner keeps in office. The only other folks who could mount a campaign would be personally wealthy themselves - - and not just wealthy, super wealthy.

Right now, you can come up with a "bare bones" primary strategy that funds you through two or three primaries, on the theory that if you do well enough in those two primaries, you will win over enough major and small donors to continue on. You can do "retail politics", which means you talk to as many folks as possible, person to person, in those two states. For candidates with ideas, this is really the best way to go, but it's very time consuming, and it does cost money to drive all over Iowa and New Hampshire.

You couldn't do that with a national primary. You'd have to run in all 50 states at the same time - - have campaign offices, paid political ads, and travel all over the country in a very short period of time. Or you'd end up doing what is actually a variation of the swing state model - - figuring that if you campaigned enough in New York, Cali, Florida, and a few other major states, maybe you cold win that way. But either way, the primary would cost billions instead of millions. And you'd probably be blown out of the water by somebody who has a ton of their own money, or a ton of corporate money, or even some yahoo who has nothing but name recognition: a sports star or an actor.