The Crossed Pond

I am a supporter of a National Primary, as I said in a post here, not long after we started this blog. Frankly, I think that the historical pre-eminence of New Hampshire and Iowa, based on their insistence on being the first primary or caucus, is bad for American politics in general and for the main two political parties in particular. In a comment to that early thread, Brad supported keeping a staggered nomination process but front loading it with swing states, based on party self-interest (this would still keep Iowa and New Hampshire near the front, incidentally). That also makes sense to me; it would certainly be better than what we currently have, although I still don’t see why the voters of NY, TX and California would stand for it (which means some conflict, but probably resolveable through ignoring their whining, as I say later).

In any case, both ideas, or anything inbetween, would require the parties to run the nominations process with something of an iron fist, prepared to steamroller states like New Hampshire where state law sets constraints on where their primary can be held; this would require refusing to seat their delegates to the convention, or devalueing their delegation, or something like that. It’s likely to be a messy business (one that I think would be more easily done if the rule was that all primaries and caucuses were held on the same day, or probably better, that they couldn’t be held before a certain day and delegates be counted, which would likely amount to the same thing).

The Democrats have been making some efforts to widen the nomination process by allowing South Carolina and Nevada to push their nomination contests forward. Of course, that doesn’t just broaden the early nominations electorate; it clearly increases, in national politics, the issues of importance to the voters in those states as candidates for the nomination vie for their votes with rhetoric and policy commitments. Why shouldn’t the other states want a slice of that?

Anyhow. Florida is the biggest swing state; whether it’s the most important in the Presidential election will depend to some extent on which candidate each party is running, but it’s in the first tier of important states alongside Ohio (with Pennsylvania perhaps snapping at their heels, although it’s shrinking in votes and seems to be trending bluer than might have been anticipated a few years ago; other states, such as New Mexico, Iowa and new Hampshire, have merit as swing states but are too small to be particularly important in and of themselves). So, Florida moving their primary forward to late January presents the Democrats with an unwelcome problem, one they are threatening to resolve by barring Florida delegates from the ‘08 convention.

What a triumph that would be!

No, wait.

Telling the voters of the biggest swing state they’re not to infringe on the Southern primacy of the Democrats of Republican South Carolina is hardly the message the Dems want to be sending in ahead of the 2008 presidential election. They might as well join a coalition against Fat Retired People.

When coming up with a new strategy, it’s always a good idea to consider what others might do to screw it up, and how to react (or else change the strategy itself). Tinkering with the calendar is bound to be a messy business; I think that it’ll be less messy if my preferred calendar were followed but Brad’s option, of swing states being pushed first, also solves important problems in achieving the changes. Yes, you’ll still piss voters in some states off (those that don’t end at the front) but those voters won’t matter so much, because they aren’t in states that are important in Presidential elections. That’s a political calculation, and added to it should be any effect on fundraising and Congressional and state races if voters feel aggrieved enough to turn on a party, but it has to be better than telling Florida voters that they don’t count as much as those in much less electorally important states.

The Democrats are saying ‘Don’t move, or the idiot gets it’; this is a bad strategy because they are pointing the gun at their own head.