NYT editorial: The Primary Problem

[DeepModem Mom]

The Primary Problem
Published: September 2, 2007

This is shaping up to be an ugly presidential primary season, and the candidates have not even started getting ugly yet. The Democratic Party is vowing to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates if those states insist on pushing their primaries up to January. The Republicans are also threatening to take delegates from Florida and Michigan, along with three other states. Iowa and New Hampshire, whose laws require them to vote before other states, may respond to the interlopers by moving their own primaries into early January, or even late 2007.

The presidential primary system is broken. For years, the nominating process has unfolded in an orderly, if essentially unfair, way. The schedule has worked very nicely for early-voting states, which have had a steady stream of would-be presidents knocking on their doors, making commitments on issues like the Iowa full-employment program, also known as the ethanol subsidy. The losers have been states like New York and California, which have often gotten to vote only when the contests were all but decided. Issues that matter to them, like mass transportation, have suffered.

There have long been calls for reform, but the national parties have been reluctant to tinker with the system. The Democrats made a small change this time around, allowing Nevada and South Carolina to join Iowa and New Hampshire in selecting delegates before Feb. 5, the end of a protected window for early-state voting....The states are fighting back. Many have pushed their primaries up to Feb. 5, the first day that the non-early-voting states are allowed to schedule their primaries. As a result, Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008 — when primaries are scheduled in California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and many other states — is being called not just Super Tuesday, but Super Duper Tuesday.

A few states are going further, openly defying the Feb. 5 cutoff. The highest-profile fight has been over Florida, which has scheduled its primary for Jan. 29. The Democratic National Committee is insisting that Florida adopt a process that complies with its rules, perhaps by turning the Jan. 29 vote into a “beauty contest” and choosing actual delegates later. The Republican Party has taken a similar stand.

The national parties are right to take a hard line. If there is anything worse than a bad primary schedule, it is an utterly chaotic one....

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The states bucking the system are right about a larger point: the nominating process must be changed. An ideal system would start slowly enough that candidates who are not well-known or well-financed can score some early victories or at least show well. At the same time, it would allow larger states to participate early enough in the process that their voters could play a significant role in choosing the nominees. It would spread out primary days over a long enough time that a true campaign could emerge, rather than the near-national primary that is likely to occur next Feb. 5....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/opinion/02sun1.html?hp