how can you stop iowa and new hampshire from

[nosmokes]

picking the frontrunners? i.e: how do you rearrange the primaries so two minimally populated, fairly conservative states have a disproportionatepower over who the two major parties end up running for president? it makes no sense.

[Inspired]

1. Iowa dems are NOT conservative

and they don't always choose the eventual front runner. Iowa doesn't always have the same #1 as New Hampshire. I seriously doubt if any candidate could have beaten Kerry in NH, it's all about the demographics, and Edwards would have won Iowa if there were a couple more days before the caucus.

Take a deep breathe.

[FrenchieCat]

2. Hasn't that train already left the station??

I don't think WE can stop it.......unfortunately!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Two right leaning states start the process?

California and Mississippi would be fairer.

[emulatorloo]

6. Iowa democrats are pretty lefty. Don't believe the hype

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. Are they left of NY or Cali?

If one wants a true sample one would sample both sides of the party. Why sample two middle states? If you sample a left state and a right state at the beginning, you'll get a better taste. If both agree, you've got a winner. If both disagree, you're where you thought you'd be.

[Sal Minella]

10. Yes we are lefty, but could somebody explain to me how Steve King

got elected from Iowa? I can see how we could elect a Republican, but a madman???

[Inspired]

14. No kidding!

He is a lunatic. Maybe it is a good thing he got elected. If only to remind people how crazy repukes can be.

[karynnj]

7. Strategically, 2 swing states, which Iowa and NH are

is much better than an ultra red and a very blue state. It would take a super landslide for those states to not vote their color. California is also a huge state. 2004 was an anomaly in that it is rare for one person to be the front runner from the moment the first votes were cast, There is a lot of revisionist history by people supporting other candidates. The process as it is is already tipped to over represent the South.

After Iowa and NH, there was a multi-state day with OK,SC, MO,ND,DE, AZ, and NM. A strong Southern populist should have done very well in these states. Many magazines, in fact, took the week after NH to profile (positively) John Edwards. That would have been the moment he could have emerged as the front runner. CNN,in fact, reported the 5 states for Kerry, 1 for Edwards and 1 for Clark as a big win for Kerry (which it was) and a small win for Edwards (when in fact if he couldn't get a majority of these states, what states could he get?)

Things may well play out very differently in 2008, but the fact is that Kerry won the primaries very easily. He was excellent in the primary debates and he did a good job connecting with people in the primary states.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. In order:

IA, NH, OK, SC, MO, ND, DE, AZ, and NM.

9 states in and not one of them a lefty.

I wonder what's going on? :freak: :sarcasm:

[karynnj]

24. exactly my point

I have little problem with IA, NH, AZ, and NM as they are swing states - so they may be very good tests. DE is a solid Democratic state. I would guess that Carter then Clinton pushed the Southern bias. This does show that Kerry was a solid candidate vs Edwards and Clark in 2004 - these are among the toughest states for a Mass Senator (excepting NH).

The liberal states that voted in early March STILL could have changed who the nominee was. In 2004, if you look at the results in these early 9 states, Kerry not only won 7 of them but had credible results in the others. (He had 27% vs 30% each for Clark and Edwards in OK - certainly not a blow out. In SC he had about 30% to Edwards' 45% (Clark was in single digits.) Every candidate, other than Kerry had several states where they were in single digits. Although the media concentrated on calling Edwards the second best - he was a pretty weak second.

I do agree that rather than SC or OK, which are hopeless - adding two solid Democratic states would be better.

[EST]

4. Actually, it does make some sense when you listen to their

arguments for the preservation of the status quo, available on a recent c-span program.

I have advocated, for quite some time, later primaries - like in June, maybe - and having all the primaries occur in the same week. Now I'm not quite so sure.

[Hardrada]

5. Go Hawks!

[Inspired]

15. Go 'clones!

[welshTerrier2]

11. the real problem

i like the "retail" flavor that small state, shake-hands-with-the-voters politics provides ... that's a big plus for Iowa and New Hampshire ... changing the schedule around would do a disservice to that process although i think adding another early state or two, one that better represents large urban areas and one that better represents racial diversity would be a good idea ...

but i think focusing on "who goes first" fails to address the real problem with the primary process ... the real problem is that whatever states go first are going to deprive later states from having a meaningful voice in the candidate selection process ...

one solution, and i think it's a really bad one, would be to hold a national primary on the same day ... this favors the big name, big money candidates ... it also doesn't let us evaluate candidates over a period of time as events change ...

a much better solution is to look at the main reason a win in Iowa or New Hampster (local humor) makes such a big difference and virtually ends the process of the primaries in most instances ... and the big difference can be summed up with one word: MONEY ... once the big funders can smell the horse out in front, it's over ... that's where the money goes and the "also rans" get weaker and weaker and poorer and poorer ...

what i would like to see is a party rule that puts a limit on primary campaign spending ... candidates could receive all the money they can raise (which i think they should turn over to the party if they lose) but there should be an absolute, reasonable spending cap ... that way, the big winner of an early primary might still get better press coverage and much more exposure but their fundraising advantage from an early win would be significantly lessened ...

so, it's not the politics or the demographics of the early states that's the problem; it's the poisoning of the process with big money ... even if Democrats can't change the General Election laws on campaign spending, we can still put our own house in order ... let's give every Democrat in every state a meaningful opportunity to participate in selecting our national candidates; changing the "who goes first" will not accomplish that ... when the money dries up, the ballgame is over ...

[nosmokes]

12. how about regional primaries? or something radical like

the northern half of eastern time zone states and moutain time zone. then you could have pacific time zone and central time zone. what we got don't work that well. spend llots of money to get two corporate candidates facing each other in november.

[welshTerrier2]

13. bigger primaries mean more money is needed

my view is that if we have "Super Tuesdays" or make candidates compete in multiple states at the same time, as in regional primaries, the big name, big money candidates have a huge advantage ...

this seems even more likely to favor corporate candidates ...

[TayTay]

18. The Dem actions are making it worse not better

The front-loading of the primaries makes competition less and makes the early choices of Iowa and New Hampshire more critical to the process, not less. As recently as 1992, the primaries that occurred in April in New York and other places still mattered in gathering delegates and picking the nominee.

New Hampshire and Iowa should be pushed back to March. There should be a two week window between the New Hampshire primary and any other primary. This will make these later primaries MORE powerful in the choice, as this will give voters a chance to rethink the choice of the earlier primaries. This is what used to happen, until the process was speeded up after '96. (Look at the earlier races. The ones that were not decided until late in the year all had widely spread out primaries. The more 'SuperTuesdays' and early primaries we have, the more important we make the early decider states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Want to decrease the power of these states. Add two weeks to the schedule and space the primaries out. That will do it.)

A candidate will always have the option of 'busting the caps' or deciding not to agree to the matching funds. Gov Dean was the first to do this in that last primary cycle and Sen. Kerry decided to do so after him. A lot of candidates thought this was the way to go, so expect more, not less of this in the future. (Certainly Sen. Clinton will elect to forgo the matching funds if her current fundraising levels are maintained. There simply isn't enough money in the matching system to be competitive.) There is an argument to be made, based on the last election, that candidates might opt out of the public funding once the nominees are chosen. That might have made a difference last time. The matching funds don't work unless all parties agree to them and the current system is not equitable. (It was, in no way, designed to be equitable. This is about power after all, not fairness.)

[welshTerrier2]

19. spending caps

it seems to me that spending caps should not be optional for primary candidates ... i am certainly no elections expert but my view is that the party should require anyone seeking its nomination to obey the caps ...

there should be no opting out if the candidate wants to remain in the party ... the idea would be, here are our rules - obey them or get out ...

the rule would be based on party rules; not based on election law ... would this be legally enforceable? i have no idea ...

big money is a disaster and if candidates have the option to opt out, the idea of a level playing field (regarding spending) becomes impossible ...

[formernaderite]

16. I pretty much hate the process of nominating

with these early primaries...by the time they get to the few remaining states, we often suffer from low turn out..because people already think the winner has been chosen. This tends to hurt local politicians. I'd also like to see Iowa and NH replaced by true blue states, like New York or to make a point Wash DC.

[Odin2005]

17. We really need to reform the primary system here in the US.

All primaries should be on the same day.

[ISUGRADIA]

21. All that will do is give the victory to the candidate with the most money

[dsc]

20. The problem isn't left or right

as pointed out Iowa's Democrats are pretty far to the left. The problem is that both states are very unrepresentative of the Democratic party in terms of minorities. LGBT, Jews, and African Americans are all important parts of the Democratic coalition but are virtually non existent in those states. Maryland would be a far better state to start off with. It is fairly small but has a similar demographic make up to the US as a whole. A candidate who does well there would have a pretty good likelihood of doing well in the whole country.

[LincolnMcGrath]

22. DON'T let Bill Clinton know that you have to win Iowa to win it all.

:eyes:

[DemDogs]

26. Completely misleading

Clinton opted out of Iowa because Harkin was running in 92 and he could defer to him. The Des Moines Register poll that put Vilsack in fourth place suggests that no one can use that excuse in 2008.

[CornField]

23. One thing... Iowa doesn't have a 'primary'

The process in Iowa is unique and traditional.

Also, while Iowa's demographics may not be a fair representation of overall American demographics, the fact remains that there is no state which is. I would also be willing to wage a bet that while Iowa does not have the largest minority populations in certain categories, we *do* have the most politically active minorities in the nation. That is, the minorities present in Iowa typically turn out in higher percentages than in other places.

If the first state was one of the larger ones, many candidates would not be able to raise the capital to even launch a bid. As it stands now, Iowa and New Hampshire are affordable and provide both parties with a wide variety of candidates which are all given national attention.

[Debi]

25. All Iowa and New Hampshire do is determine who the Democratic activists

in Iowa and New Hampshire desire to see as the nominee. If primaries weren't so front-loaded there would be time after Iowa and New Hampshire for campaigns to re-group, re-organize and re-energize (just ask Bill Clinton). Yes, a win in Iowa or New Hampshire can give a virtual unknown a jump-start (Jimmy Carter) but it doesn't guarantee success (Tom Harkin).

There is no good reason to front-load the primaries (why not have IA-NH go and then wait 30 days for the next cycle?).

It would work great to have smaller states that are close to each other geographically to go together and have larger states to go on their own. All the contests leading up to the National Convention. Having a spread out calendar allows candidates with less money time to organize the smaller states and spend what little they have in the larger states (If one candidate wins NY but can't be competitive in say NC/SC/TN/AL/GA the playing field remains even and competitive). This also allows the different arguments of diversity (gender/ethnic/economic/etc.) to be addressed with more detail over the primary cycle.

[SharonAnn]

28. I grew up in Waterloo, IA and there's a very large minority population

there. I was told that came about because of all the factory and railroad jobs there in the 1900's and people came from the south for those jobs.

The rural areas might be different, but cities have often had a large African American population. I'mtold that now there are areas with heavy Hispanic populations, some of it due to jobs at meatpacking companies.

I've been away for a long time, so I'm not sure how it is these days but I can't believe that the minority population has disappeared.

[DemDogs]

27. Things wrong with what you said (and one thing right)

Right: Iowa and NH pick the frontrunners.

Wrong:
The Democratic base in neither of these states is "fairly conservative" or even "barely conservative."

Think of Iowa, think Tom Harkin. Those caucus-goers in Iowa are passionately liberal. I doubt any state's Democratic primary voters are across the board as liberal as Iowa's. None. Why do you think Lieberman dropped out? Why do you think that Republican fundraiser Clark wouldn't go there?

New Hampshire is a complicated state because independents can vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary. It is what Bill Bradley had counted on before McCain took the lion's share of the independent vote in 2000. It is what Lieberman counted on in 2004 -- and still counts on today: votes from people other than Democrats.

The best thing about Iowa and New Hampshire is that their voters actually pay attention. In some states that followed Iowa and NH polls showed a lot of people didn't even know there was a primary. You want those people deciding instead? Their ignorance makes Iowa and NH more important because so many people vote for the ones who made it through those states.

The next best thing is that Iowa and New Hampshire are small enough so that money is not too big a barrier and retail politics (more like a real democracy) can actually happen. Our President ought to be tested in living rooms and school cafeterias. It is good for them.

The worst thing about Iowa and NH is their demographics. I don't think they have less gays, as someone suggested, but they have less African-Americans, less Hispanics, less Asian-Americans. That, not their influence, is the reason we will see another state in the mix in 2008.