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| Home Front: Politix |
| Time to ditch early primaries? |
| 2011-10-22 |
| Too many of us sat passively way back when the deciders were outsourcing our jobs to underdeveloped places halfway around the world. Now they've outsourced our democracy to just a handful of states and are in the act of hijacking our holiday season. We need to demand an end to the greed-based imperatives of a few states that have been leapfrogging their primary and caucus dates ever earlier just to cash in on the campaign dollars windfall that goes to those who go first. Every four years, Democratic and Republican voters in most states discover that the choice of a presidential nominee has already been made for them. Or that their first-, second- and third-choice candidates have already been forced out of the race by voters in a small, faraway place that really doesn't represent their own interests. The nominee is virtually chosen by springtime, forcing everyone to sit on their hands until the final two months of the fall campaign. There is a better way — one that may not have been suited for earlier eras, but is ideal for fostering democracy in the Internet Age. It is based upon the concept of time-zone primaries and caucuses, and we'll get to it in a minute. But first, here's a quick catch-up on the mess our politicos have made of today's nominating calendar. While most Americans are agog amid the usual Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's whirligig, television's gush of warm-and-fuzzy holiday commercials will duel with those slash-and-burn attack ads of desperate presidential candidates. Iowa, which planned to go first on Feb. 6 (also way too early), will now hold its caucuses before some have cleared their New Year's Eve cobwebs — on Jan. 3, 2012. All because Florida moved to cash in by moving its primary to Jan. 31, igniting a chain reaction: South Carolina and Nevada pushed earlier into mid-January. And as a result of all that, New Hampshire's infuriated pols are now threatening to hold their 2012 primary in December 2011. It's about time for us to start streamlining our presidential politics for the Internet Age. And we can start by getting rid of our campaign bandwagon's ancient running boards — the vote-first anachronism of Iowa and New Hampshire and the notion that we still need two small states to go first and do our thinking and thinning for us. Many have suggested four regional primaries/caucuses — Northeast, South, Midwest and West — on the first Tuesday of March, April, May and June, the order of each region's elections being drawn from a hat each election year. But this idea has one huge negative: It conveys potential advantage to a candidate who may be strong regionally, but weak nationally. Solution: To avoid traditional regional bias, regroup the regions according to three time zones. The Eastern Zone would have Georgia, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York and New Hampshire all voting the same day. Central Zone would have Michigan, Iowa and Texas. Western/Rocky Mountain Zone: Oregon, Colorado, California and Arizona. It is an idea I have long favored, and this age of YouTube and Twitter politics, its time has come. Advantages: No longer would we have our initial decisions made for us by voters in two or several small states that are famously unrepresentative of the American rainbow mosaic, from its racial hues to its economic rainbow that ranges from Rust Belt to Cotton Belt. And millions more Americans can become part of the first wave of elections that narrow the field of presidential nominees. Martin Schram: SalemNews.com, Salem, MA October 20, 2011 |
| Posted by:JohnQC |
| #1 While you're at it modernizing this process, how about modernizing the time zones as well. They were originally drawn up to accommodate the railroads which had a need for standardized time. We move and work to different rhythms than the railroad these days. Then they thew in 'daylight savings time' which now covers more of the calendar than 'standard' time. How about just shifting everyone east one zone, Eastern to Atlantic, Central to Eastern, Mountain to Central, and Pacific to Mountain and do away with DST. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2011-10-22 15:41 |