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Jewish World Review May 18, 2005 / 9 Iyar, 5765 Dem remake? By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Democrats don't want to have another presidential candidate like John Kerry,
and who can blame them? So, the AP reports, they're thinking of revamping
their nominating process.
Kerry got the nomination because he was standing nearby when Howard Dean
imploded. The nominating process was so front-loaded neither John Edwards
nor Wesley Clark had a real chance to catch him.
Two plans presented at a meeting last weekend in Chicago would continue to
allow Iowa and New Hampshire to have the first delegate selection contests.
A third, presented by Michigan Democrats, would rotate the honor of going
first.
All three propose a series of regional primaries following a couple of
opening single state contests. This shows Democrats have learned as little
about how to fix the nominating process as they have about how to appeal to
a majority of the electorate.
The good thing about Iowa and New Hampshire is that they, essentially, are
the only delegate selection contests where "retail" politics is practiced.
Presidential candidates actually go out among real people at town hall
meetings, coffee shops and such, and respond to questions real people ask.
The big state primaries and the multi-state primaries are contests more
between the candidates' advertising agencies than between the candidates
themselves.
The bad thing about Iowa and New Hampshire is that it would be hard to find
two other states as demographically unrepresentative of the country. Both
are lily white with rural, aging populations in a country that is mostly
urban and multi-ethnic. Giving grossly disproportionate weight to Iowa and
New Hampshire throws a curve into the process at the start.
Retail campaigning is good. We should have more of it. We need also to
diminish the weight of Iowa and New Hampshire. That means more single state
primaries, not fewer.
Let Iowa lead off with it's first in the nation caucuses, followed eight
days later with the New Hampshire primary, as per usual. But have South
Carolina hold its primary on the Saturday after the New Hampshire primary,
with a primary in Arizona or Colorado the following Tuesday. Let there be
Iowa-type caucuses in Louisiana, say, or Missouri the next Saturday, and a
primary in Oregon or Wisconsin the following Tuesday.
We could have single state delegate selection contests every Tuesday and
Saturday for the first couple of months of the nominating season. This
would maximize retail campaigning, give dark horses a chance to emerge, and
hold the interest of voters.
The next step in democratizing the nominating process is to have fewer
primaries. The more primaries, the less each of them mean, and the more
expensive it is for candidates to compete in them. Big state contests are
decided by which candidate has the biggest war chest, not the best ideas.
The big states, except for California, should drop their primaries.
California's primary should be moved back to its historic time in June,
providing a punctuation mark to the delegate selection process. If a winner
hasn't emerged by California, one almost certainly shall afterwards.
The big states should select their delegates the old fashioned way, by
county, district and state party conventions.
Primary voters and especially Iowa-type caucus goers are more extreme than
the party rank and file. (The Iowa caucus was essentially invented by Gary
Hart in 1972 to give George McGovern a boost.)
These would be sensible reforms. But because Democrats are Democrats,
there's little chance they'll adopt them.
Some Democrats think dumping the donkey for a new symbol might help. The
New York Daily News reports three ad agencies have been commissioned to come
up with a new emblem.
Might I suggest the chicken, to reflect Democratic foreign policy? Or the
ostrich, to indicate the Democrats' refusal to recognize the world has
changed since the 1960s? Or perhaps the vulture, to commemorate the
Democrats' lust for bad news from Iraq?
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
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