Jewish World Review March 15, 2005 / 4 Adar II, 5765

Carl P. Leubsdorf

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Iowa and New Hampshire: No better place for primaries


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | In recent weeks, a bipartisan parade of 2008 presidential hopefuls to Iowa and New Hampshire has begun. There's only one problem: It's not certain the two states will open the presidential nominating process again three years hence.

While the Republican rules for 2008 are pretty much cast in concrete, the Democrats have created yet another commission to study the primary calendar and propose possible changes. It holds its first meeting on Saturday.

As one of the few reporters who has covered every such panel back to the 1960s, here's some advice: Let well enough alone.

The reason: Iowa and New Hampshire are good places to begin, especially compared to the alternatives. Besides, every change in the last 35 years has complicated matters.

Former Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe agreed to name the panel last year to appease Democrats in Michigan and other states who sought to challenge the Iowa-New Hampshire primacy.

Some Democrats felt they were at a political disadvantage in 2000, when Republicans held primaries in February in states where the Democrats didn't allow them. But the fall results didn't validate their concerns.

Still, ever since the 1969 McGovern rules created the modern nominating system, critics have questioned the influence of the two small, predominantly white and rural states.

That criticism was exacerbated by the fact that, in the last two Democratic races, victories by Al Gore and John Kerry in both Iowa and New Hampshire had the practical effect of deciding the nomination before any other state voted.

But that wasn't unusual, since every modern candidate who won both states has won his party's nomination. Split outcomes, by contrast, produced far different scenarios, for the Democrats in 1988 and 1992 and the Republicans in 1996 and 2000.

Here are several reasons the nation is well served by keeping Iowa and New Hampshire at the front of the pack:

  • The two states are small enough to permit retail politics where candidates have to sell themselves to small groups of voters in person, rather than campaign primarily via television commercials. A candidate doesn't need $20 million to compete.

  • Their people take choosing a president very seriously. They study the candidates' positions and flock to see them. Voter turnout is often very impressive. In Iowa, more Democrats voted in last January's caucuses than in the last contested primary for governor. In New Hampshire last year, Democrats voted in record numbers.

  • A bigger state might be more representative but would almost certainly require most campaigning to be on television, rather than in person. That would make money more important. Indeed, ending the favored status of Iowa and New Hampshire would likely lead to a number of contests on the same day, reducing the chance for individual voters to question and view the candidates.

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  • Iowa and New Hampshire are moderate states in an increasingly polarized nation. Neither red nor blue but purple, they are two of the three states that switched sides between 2000 and 2004. Despite some spectacular exceptions, Republicans in them have rarely backed the most conservative candidate and Democrats have rarely backed the most liberal hopeful.

  • In a practical sense, an effort to change the system might prove almost impossible to achieve and hardly worth the trouble. The Republicans are set on their 2008 calendar. New Hampshire state law requires its primary to be held at least one week ahead of any other. While the Iowa caucuses don't have the same protection, any effort to schedule contests ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire might force both to move their dates to late 2007, further adding to an interminable campaign.

There's another reason it may make little sense for the Democrats to fiddle with the schedule. By all current signs, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be a strong favorite to win the nomination if she runs, whatever the calendar.

And front-runners almost always win party nominations. Howard Dean's collapse in 2004 marked the first time since 1972 that the clear leader failed to do so.


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Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Comment by clicking here.

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