Dem Leaders Offer States Incentives For Later Primaries
With big states like California and Michigan trying to move up their primaries to inflate their importance in the nomination process, Dem leaders are offering states a variety of incentives to induce them to keep their primaries late, the Associated Press reports. "States that have traditionally come late in the process and gotten little attention in the process would get a `small bonus' of delegates to the 2008 convention if they stay put," the AP says. "States willing to move their events later in the year would get `significant bonuses.'"
The effort, which could be voted on by the Democratic National Committee in February, is meant to prevent big states from "frontloading" the primary process, which would favor well-funded candidates like Hillary Clinton who would be flush enough to fund a big-state primary effort early in the game. The idea is that stacking the primary process in favor of better-funded pols prevents all the candidates from being subjected to a more drawn-out series of primaries that would better determine the long-term electability of those candidates. More here.
I don't know what incentive there really would be to have a later primary. The primary process, as it is currently structured, allows Iowa and New Hampshire to basically determine the nominee. Because voters are sometimes like sheep - once they see that one person has won one or two elections in a mid to small sized state, that means that they should automatically follow suit?!
That is what happened in 2004 with Kerry after he won both of the above-mentioned states, and I, for one, do NOT want to see that happen again.
December 1, 2006 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to see a primary season consisting of primaries in maybe 15 small-to-medium-sized states, scattered around the country, during the February (let's get primaries out of January, OK?) to May period, then the remaining 35 states in one big primary on the first Saturday in June.
A system like that would allow candidates besides the frontrunner to stay in the game as long as they felt there was reason to, it would give them plenty of time to get their message out, and it would mean the nomination was still in play when the game got to the big states, since 70% of the states (and an even larger % of the delegates) would remain unchosen until the end.
December 1, 2006 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Something along those lines basically happens every election. Think McCain-Bush 2000. After South Carolina, it was basically over. Gore-Bradley was probably over after New Hampshire. You win one or two primaries, you get a rash of good publicity and media coverage, donations spike, etc. etc.
December 1, 2006 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure this procedure would assuage the big states either. Presumably the election would still be over (not mathematically, of course, but realistically) by the time the primaries turned to them. Plus, by lumping them together, you can deal with their specific issues. Maybe California wants better smog control and public transportation and New York wants something else. (Not that you'd really be able to deal with local issues that much in such big states anyway -- the campaign would be all about TV ads -- that's why I think the first part of your idea is a good one, just hard to work out.)
December 1, 2006 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink