By: Brian Sikma
It has been discussed in earlier posts (here and here) and I was recently asked about it in the aftermath of Iowa: Does Indiana’s primary matter in presidential politics? The short answer: No. The long answer: If we have a long, drawn out primary battle we may matter.
A couple of ways to solve the primary inequity involves either a rotating primary schedule (mentioned as a possibility by Murray Clark) or a single, national primary day similar to the general election day. My concern about the latter was echoed by Joel Harris in a comment to co-Director Josh Gillespie’s post below. Such a system would be seriously disadvantageous to candidates who need to work on building their fundraising, national campaign team, and national name ID. Republican candidates who would be hurt this cycle by such a system include Fred Thompson, Mike Huckabee, Duncan Hunter, and to a lesser extent John McCain.
A rotating primary schedule is something that deserves serious consideration. A disadvantage of this system is that quadrennial elections (such as the gubernatorial race) would be in cycles that are subject to some change as Indiana’s primary day moves around every four years (probably for that year alone). However, if we are to develop a fair system that allows Indiana to play an occasional early state role this is a side-effect we must live with.
A solution that may be able to solve some of our problems would be a sort of rotating tiered system whereby a specified number of states each hold primaries on the same day. For example, the first tier would be very small, 3 states at the most. This small state focus would allow low dollar contenders to have an opportunity to prove their ideas and candidacies in a small micro-election that, if they won or finished strong in, would allow them to raise more funds and gain more press attention for the next tier of states. Each successive tier would be larger than the prior tier until all states had voted. Within each tier would be a diversity of states, smaller states like Indiana and larger states like Illinois and Michigan.
The theory here is that each tier is a bigger and better trial run towards the general election and a tier structure would-in theory-prevent states from conducting the wild scramble for primary dates that occurred during this current cycle. In order to allow for equitable participation by each of the states, a rotation system could be set up whereby regions or other groups of states have a chance to be the all important early states.
I would be interested in hearing any solutions that our readers may have for dealing with the early state vs. late state primary problem.
One of the ideas that was floated was to keep Iowa and New Hampshire in their current role and then have the remainder in four tiers that would rotate each year. This would solve some problems, but not others. I don’t necessarily think Iowa and NH are “typical” enough to keep them in their preferred positions.
The reality is that the current system is not horrible and the national parties efforts to keep states from jumping the gun will probably be effective next time around, even if nothing else is done. I would like to see Iowa and NH kept to being no earlier than the third week of January.
Or how about this: choose six states that can each have one primary once per week from mid-January through the end of February, then three (four?) groups of states that can have primaries with at least two week gaps between.
I don’t know. I just want the solution to come from the Democrats and Republicans and not by the Federal government.
A question is, just who is more important for the primary process, the candidates or the voters? Making a concious decision about that might make all other decisions much easier.
Whatever is decided, simpler is better. Rotating schedules and multiple tiers is just adding confusion to an already flawed process. I don’t see any of that as helping.
I don’t think you can separate the voters and candidates in this way. You could say that simpler would be National Primary Day and hold it all at once. That is simple, but it would not be better for either the electorate or the candidates.
Why? We would not have time or opportunity to evaluate ALL of the candidates. The current system brings different ideas to the front at different times and allows evaluation. It allows candidates who do not have much money to come into play–which is beneficial to both the candidates as well as the electorate.
You are probably right that rotating schedules adds “confusion”, though I doubt it is any more confusing than the current system where states are moving their primary/caucus dates rapidly. The problem is that we have had a functioning system until the last couple of cycles when certain states are saying, “Hey, we don’t have enough say in the process.”
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