Proposal on 2008 Primary Schedule

[Old and In the Way]

People rightfully complain about the primary order and the influence it has on selecting the candidate. How about this:

Take the results of turnout in the 2004 Primary. Reward the state with the highest % of registered Democrats with the 1st primary. The state with the lowest turnout gets the last primary.

Of course, it might be unfair at this point....perhaps have a lottery for 2008 and make this stipulation applicable to 2012 so as to keep people motivated to turnout?

[dorktv]

1. I have one: Every primary on the same day.

Sounds bad in terms of publicity but WAIT! THERE'S MORE!!! We could have the primary a week before the convention so that way we have a race up until the end of June! Sounds good?

[Hav]

2. no

[dorktv]

3. Care to give reasons?

Might as well have them all on the same day since the winner is decided before most people get to vote.

[angryinoville]

20. What they could do is...

have a series of debates. Hell, why not one in every state. The primary season will consist of these debates. They will go on for a couple of months and will allow all Americans to get a feel for each candidate without having to advertise. Therefore, it won't rely on money so much. Then, on one fateful day, each state will hold their primary elections and whomever comes out on top gets the nomination without anyone feeling short changed. Maybe I'm just a communist.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

4. Of course there's not much chance

that in the runup to that apocalyptic vote, some of the candidates, or outside groups for whatever purposes, would go nuclear with negative ads at the last minute, fatally wounding the nominee without leaving time to recover.

[dorktv]

5. There is always that.

[mohc]

6. This simply would not work

The parties do not get to arbitrarily decide when the race begins. It begins whenever the media decides it does, and giving the media more influence over the process is a bad idea. If every state voted on the same day, no matter if its at the beginning of the year or right before the convention, the media is only going to cover the race for a few weeks leading up until the vote. This would basically shut out any candidate that does not have the money to advertise heavily, which would be even harder with races all over the country. In a season like what we had this year, only Kerry and Dean would have been viable, and Kerry just barely so. Kerry probably would not have done the mortgage loan that kept his campaign afloat having to cover all those states, and Dean would have waltzed into the nomination. Which might not sound bad to you if you were a Dean supporter, but keeping in mind what the media would have been doing to Dean in those last few weeks before the vote, just like what they did in Iowa, he would be a very wounded nominee.

[dorktv]

8. Now that is a very good reason but then what about those

states that are now feeling pointless?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

10. It's not pointless.

Your votes and delegates count just as much as those from a state that voted earlier. The only difference is that you already know who the probable nominee is.

[mohc]

13. This topic has come up several times

And I have pretty much come to the conclusion that what we need is to address specifically the problems with the current system. The main problem with IA and NH is not just that they are first, but that there is not enough time after them for the bounce effect from winning those states before the next primary. Winning early builds up momentum, which can be very hard to overcome. Regional bias plays into this because candidates that come from states nearby the early primaries have a distinct advantage at gaining this momentum. So basically there are 3 problems to address: 1. Regional bias 2. Closeness of primaries 3. Order of primaries. What I think would be the best idea instead of putting all the primaries on the same day is to group them into regionally balanced groups and spread out those groups so that any bounce will have died down between the primaries. These groups then should rotate each primary season so that the order changes every time. 6 groups that vote from January until June would probably be the most logical breakdown, and we could just pick the second Tuesday of every month to be the election day. This would give us 8-9 states per group. The only real problem with the implementation is that IA and NH are not going to like the rotation idea.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

9. Also, if the campaign were a national campaign right from the start

without the retail level politics of Iowa and New Hampshire, voters would never get an opportunity to see the candidates up close and personal. Every campaign would be all about who had the best national ads and national media coverage.

Rural areas would also be ignored because without the strategic considerations there are now, those delegates wouldn't be cost-effective to go after.

[mohc]

7. This would eventually lead to the same problem we have now

Whichever state wins the first time would basically always win. The sooner your election is, the higher your turnout is, the later the vote the lower the turnout. Basically the order of the primaries would serve to reinforce the positions they already have and we would be back to one state having dominance over the process. The opposite might actually keep things fluid, where lower turnout states are promoted, and we would probably see a scenario where states flip from one extreme to another. But of course NH and IA would never agree to this. One problem with basing the date on turnout though is how it is measured. If we base it off of VAP then states that have lower percentages of Democrats would end up with lower turnout numbers. Measuring against registered voters would be hard because many states allow independents or even Republicans to vote in their primaries.

[I Lean Left]

11. I say cancel them since Kerry will run for re-election unopposed!

;-)

[mitchtv]

12. four or five regional primaries

within a month

[coloradodem2005]

14. THat is a good idea.

THe only problem with that idea is that the states towards the end of the primaries are going to have low turnout. Especially if they are after Super Tuesday. So that would taint the results of the primary turnout.

[Old and In the Way]

15. That was the problem I was trying to address.

At this point Kerry's nomination is a forgone conclusion. But to keep voter turnout high, it would be good if they were competing for the #1 slot in the next primary. It would provide some motivation to get the vote out. Those at the end of the cycle would know what the threshold is to become #1 and provide a basis for Democratic voter participation.

My problem with the current stucture is 2-fold.

(1) The same states get to always have the close-up attention of the candidates running.

(2) Urban areas are not represented in the initial primary/caucus votes....I think a rural state like Iowa or NH should be balanced with a large urban state like NY, FL, or CA.

[coloradodem2005]

16. Yes...

...but people may not look that far ahead. I could be wrong but when people are caucusing they are thinking about 2004 not 2008. THen they would be thinking of 2008, not 2012.

[MurikanDemocrat]

17. Is there realistically going to be any change in the future Primary

schedules? The point of this one, as I recall, was to pick a candidate early and have more time to raise money against the Bush machine and tackle him head on. That has been accomplished.

So, it's not like this outcome wasn't predictable. It just wasn't known at the time for sure which candidate would get the first bounce out of the gate. For all intents and purposes it looked like that would be Dean up until shortly before they started.

[Old and In the Way]

18. I have no real issue with the 2004 schedule per se.

I do think it should be rotated to allow other states to enjoy the paticipatory/influential benefits that seem to be franchised to IA and NH.

[zulchzulu]

19. More debates and make them open to the public

All debates should be broadcast or allowed to be broadcast on the free PBS media channels. No exclusive MSNBC, Fox, CNN presentations...

The primaries should not be front-loaded like they were. No Super Tuesdays where 10 states vote. The pace should be even and have no more than three states that are regional per election day. That would make the campaign more focused on regions and make travel costs a lot less for the candidates.

My two cents...