You may have heard that the 2008 primary campaign season has just gotten sillier. It all started awhile back when a number of states--more than 20 in all--moved their primary election date to February 5, 2008.
Today, South Carolina announced that it will move its presidential primary to January 19--ostensibly to preserve its "First in the South" title. We have also heard from Iowa and New Hampshire, who are only trying to preserve their "First in..." titles. This move by South Carolina is set to cause New Hampshire and Iowa to hold their primaries in early January (even possibly on New Years Day) or after Xmas--the chance that we will have a primary to select delegates in a different year than the actual presidential election.
I have argued elsewhere that this is the worst possible way to select a president. The primaries happen so fast that it keeps most Americans from registering their vote. Why? The typical voter needs a particular informational level to head to the polling place and cast their vote. The reason why more Americans vote in the presidential general election than any other election in the United States is because of the massive and sustained information blast leading up to the November vote. This is why the real general election begins following Labor Day--it is close enough to the general election to allow the typical voter to satisfy his or her informational needs. The reason why few people vote in a primary election is because it happens so far in advance of the general election and is largely over before March that most are turned off to the process. This is why primaries are dominated by the wings of the Democrat and Republican Parties. Holding a primary after Xmas or on New Years Day will not induce the typical American voter out of his or her house.
This "First in the Nation" nonsense has nothing to do with preserving an historic place in presidential elections. Like nearly everything else in American politics, it has everything to do with money. The amount of money poured into the first states is enormous--so much that Iowa and New Hampshire factor it into their budget come a presidential election year. Thus all states want a slice of that pie--hence this rush to be first.
The national political parties (DNC and RNC) have threated to block any delegate from a state that moves their date forward. For instance, the Washington Post notes that the "RNC can block half of a state's delegates to the national convention" for moving their primary date. The DNC has made a similar threat. This apparently has not struck fear in the states that are moving their date forward. Most do not believe that, come Convention time and the need to heal wounds, the national party will follow through on its threat.
Not all believe the compressed primary/long general election season is a bad thing.
Jonathan Rauch, the superb reporter/columnist at The Atlantic Monthly (as well as the National Journal) argues (sub. req.) that the compressed 08 primary season may be in the best interest of all Americans, and not in the worst interest.
Rauch suggests it works in our interest in the following ways: First, it allows more time to get to know the nominee in the general election. He uses Barack Obama as his example. Obama "entered the race with a record of inexperience no other serious contender could match." If Obama wins the nomination, he would have nearly 3/4 a year to get to know him, "an insurance policy that the country's most recent experiments with inexperience--Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush--suggest is wise."
This only holds true assuming that the average voter is already following the election, recording the positions of the candidates, and then sifting through the pros and cons to come to a rational decision. Thus in Rauch's analysis, more time would make perfect sense. The problem is that this is not the typical voter.
The larger reason that Rauch likes the compressed primary/long general election model is that it comes in close proximity to "British-style parliamentary politics: the shadow government." As he notes, in parliamentary systems like Britain, the elections happen over the span of weeks, yet candidates announce their intentions to lead years in advance. And these leaders also select "the men and women who would ascend to ministerial" positions should their party win the majority in an election. Thus in this type of system, the public gets to know the incumbent, the challenger, and knows what type of government would be in place since the inferior officers are already selected. To borrow an English phrase: Bullocks! Britain has a strong party system which makes sure that voter interest is kept high. We have nothing that works in a similar way.
Rauch is overly optimistic about the long general election season and its ability to give us a better president. He argues that in the long general election, the candidates will have more time to put in place the people who would fill the top positions. As it is now, once the candidate wins the general election, there is a mad scramble over an 11 week period to staff the Executive Branch. The fact of the matter is, the nominee already, quietly, picks who would fill the top positions. He just doesn't make that information public. In 1992, the Bush campaign cause the Clinton campaign to briefly spin out of control when Bush charged that Clinton was already "measuring the curtains" in the White House. The underlying message was the Clintons were drunk on hubris and were cock-sure they had it wrapped up, which they hadn't. Americans like a race, and they like an underdog. If a candidate assumes he or she has won, there is the prospect that some voters (and in close elections "some voters" matter a lot) will throw their support to the underdog. Hence the Clinton campaign changed strategy to make sure Americans understood that they--and not the incumbent Bush--were the underdogs.
I continue to hold hope that one day we rid ourselves of the primary and allow the political parties to make the nominee decision for us. This seems autocratic to most Americans, but in the end the party--recognizing the importance of the Independent--will produce a nominee that is more a centrist than an extremist. It also does away with the general election advertising that uses primary campaign rhetoric against the opposition. And it undermines the importance that the press has in this decision--and for my money, that is reason enough to do away with the primary.
