• Front page
• Receive this content on your RSS reader

By Dan Grossman

It’s time for a national presidential primary. And as 20 states, including California, New York and Colorado, have moved their primary balloting to Feb. 5, 2008, we finally may be moving in that direction.

To the casual observer, the timing of state primaries and caucuses used to select the Democratic and Republican nominees for president is arbitrary and confusing, probably because it is arbitrary and confusing.

Iowa and New Hampshire get the first crack at nominating major party presidential candidates.
Why? Is it because the small, homogenous populations of Iowa and New Hampshire are representative proxies for primary voters across the country? Um, no. Is it because the two states represent important economic or social sectors that are critical to the future of the republic? Um, no.

Actually, the answer begs the question. Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first because, traditionally, Iowa and New Hampshire have gone first.

Both major parties have adopted rules that allow states to conduct balloting only in a window that runs from the first Tuesday in February (in 2008, that date will be Feb. 5) to the first Tuesday in June. Iowa and New Hampshire, for no other reason than tradition, have secured special treatment from the Republicans and Democrats and are allowed to hold their balloting earlier, although the Republicans have not written such exceptions into their rules.

The result? Presidential candidates from both parties spend an inordinate amount of time and resources in two small states of little regional, let alone national significance. And the rest of the country is getting sick of it.

It seems that every four years we see jockeying by states to move up their presidential primary or caucus dates to challenge the primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire. Next year Iowa will hold its caucuses on Jan. 14 and New Hampshire its primary on Jan. 22 (that date might change if Michigan, Nevada and South Carolina’s Republicans follow through with plans to hold their balloting before that date). New Hampshire law requires that its presidential primary be held prior to any state other than Iowa. The Democratic National Committee appears poised to strip Florida of its delegates to the party’s convention and four candidates have officially pulled out of the Michigan Democratic primary.

All of this maneuvering and bickering does little to bolster confidence in a political system that already suffers from a serious affliction of cynicism and apathy.

A national primary would do more to attract attention to these party contests on a broader scale as well as create a true test of candidates’ ability to craft and communicate a national policy agenda rather than his or her ability to pander to parochial and often obscure local interests.
After all, it is the president of the United States we are electing, not the governor of Iowa.

I understand the concerns of those who say that a national primary would result in the presidential races becoming nothing more than fundraising contests, because each candidate would be forced to buy expensive national advertising time in order to address the issues facing the entire nation. But, truth be told, most races of significance are already focused on fundraising. And if candidates are forced to compete for the support of Americans from across the country in the national marketplace of ideas, that will be a tremendous improvement.

Fortunately, several states are moving in the direction of a national primary and are doing so without offending the sensibilities of party insiders.

Colorado, along with Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho’s Democrats, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico’s Democrats, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah, will hold their balloting on Tuesday, Feb. 5, the earliest date permitted by the major parties’ rules. Pundits are referring to the date as Super Duper Tuesday, and while it falls short of creating a national primary, it is a step in the right direction.

The National Association of Secretaries of State has proposed a rotating regional primaries plan under which the states would be grouped into four regions and regional primaries would be held based on a rotating schedule. A lottery would be held to determine the order of the regional primaries in 2012, with the first region moving to the back of the line in 2016. This plan is intriguing and would be a definite improvement to the arbitrary status quo. However, it would exempt Iowa and New Hampshire. That tradition is, apparently, of critical importance.

It is time that Democrats and Republicans selected the best people to vie for the presidency. It is past time that both parties dump the state-by-state approach to nominating their candidates and adopt a national primary that will give all voters a real say in who their nominees will be.

Dan Grossman is the Rocky Mountain regional director and senior attorney of Environmental Defense. He is a resident of Boulder.

READER COMMENTS

Count me out. Candidates will flock to the big population centers where massive vote numbers are, and states whose economic issues are not citified but ag, mining, etc will get short shrift if any shrift at all. This is almost as bad an idea as getting rid of the Electoral College or substituting cauliflower for popcorn. Proposal: resuscitate the parties -- do you really think we've done better at picking candidates with primaries than with the old smoke filled rooms? FDR, Truman, Ike to Dick, Jimmy and others?

I agree. That away more people help decide who will be there parties canidate not just a few states.

Not only do I support the notion of a single nationwide primary, I also believe it should be held the Tuesday immediately after Labor Day, with both parties holding their National Conventions one week later.

Hopefully, this would also help to shorten an excessively-long campaign cycle.

POST A COMMENT

• Preventing a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S.
• Closures identified: critical next steps for DPS
• Hillary health plan could result in crackdown on illegal immigration
• More energy needed from North America
• Colorado lost a superman in Zachariah Templeton
• Worldview bias on campus
• Teachers crushed by rules, regulations
• 'Access' has become excess