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Bowling for Primaries

I have been thinking about the comments by Bradley when I wrote about the primary election power struggle between the states and the parties. Last night the thought occurred to me that the parties could simply pick a new way of awarding delegates. They could set three dates on the primary calendar. Whatever states held primaries or caucuses on or before the first date would have 10% of all delegates allocated among them. States who held their primaries after the first date but before the second date would have 20% of the delegates split among them. States between the second and third dates would would split 30% of the delegates and states holding primaries after the third date would split the remaining 40% of delegates.

The parties could then invite states to participate in a given window based on population and/or a lottery but the states would then be allowed to set their primary dates wherever they chose. If we imagine that the first date for 2008 was February 4th then “Super Duper Tuesday” (or whatever it’s being called now) states would be competing for 20% of the delegates in choosing the party nominees. When states choose when to have their primaries they have to balance the value of being influential in the early stages against the larger pool of delegates to by split by those who come later.

Questions? Comments? Rebuttals?

By David

David is the father of 8 children. When he's not busy with that full time occupation he works as a technology professional. He enjoys discussing big issues with informed people, cooking, gardening, vexillology (flag design), and tinkering.

5 replies on “Bowling for Primaries”

I HATE the fact that, for all intents and purposes, New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, etc. get to basically choose the next round of candidates.

What, exactly, the hell do those people know about, say, western needs, for example? Answer: not a thing.

I think we ought to choose a month, do two states a day, and let the candidates go where they think it’s important to go. Make it a race again.

That said, all these states rushing to put the primary almost a year before the election make me pretty mad as well.

I think we ought to do it all in May, have the national party conventions in July and have the general in November.

I like, in the future, the idea of a national primary day via the internet.

I don’t have an answer. All I have a a stack of frustrations watching more and more millions getting pumped into an ever longer campaign season.

You know, I just read all this? Total babble. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Why total babble? What’s wrong with some ideas about how to change things?

Who says that New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina or any other traditional early state would be the ones to get in the early part of the primary season? What in my ideas, or the ones I linked to prevent us from shortening or postponing the primary season?

How can you call it total babble if you don’t like the current system – where are you expressing your frustrations besides complaining when someone expresses an idea to change the system?

I very much like your proposal that would allow states to determine what is more important for them; helping set the climate early in the process, or having more actual votes. It would let the states choose and would offer a certain degree of disincentive to hold an early primary.

I agree with JMBell that I’m pretty disgusted with the states that are leap-frogging each other to be first in line. Once Super-Duper-Mega Tuesday is over, we’re going to have NINE MONTHS of general election campaigning. YIKES!

Since Utah’s votes are taken for granted, we’re not as likely as up-for-grabs states to be pummeled and assaulted with nonstop campaigning, but my guess is that by Election Day, most Americans will absolutely hate both major candidates.

Now that I’m past being insulted by the “total babble” comment (I’m not sure why I let that get to me in the first place) I have to admit that JM is right that this 23 month campaign season is too long (amazing that we really had candidates declared in December of 2006). My ideal would be for candidates to start declaring in November of 2007 and have primaries run during May and June of 2008 with the conventions in the July/August time-frame followed by a 3 month general election campaign.

The problem with Utah being taken for granted is that any issues of importance to Utah will also be ignored unless they are of high importance in an up-for-grabs state.

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