The primary calendar is turning into a complete farce. Iowa caucus in December??? Preventing Florida's delegates from attending the Convention?? Longer term, we will probably have something like a national primary day. Not necessarily bad, when you consider the alternatives.
[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

Longer term, we will probably have something like a national primary day. Not necessarily bad

Necessarily bad.

Very bad.

Think Julie and Hillary as the certain choices.

The current system is awful. The only thing worse is a single national primary that makes certain the ones favored by the establishment win.

Issues would be debated even less than they are now.

The best bumper sticker would surely win.

It wouldn't say: "The War on Terror is a Bumper Sticker."

JMO.

Best, Terry

Sure but I'm not convinced that having small rural states deciding the nominee is a great idea. It's not like our 'representative' democracy represents a lot. With the primary calendar as it is, it skews towards the rural even more - harkening back to an imaginary country of small towns and decent country folks. It was always a fiction anyways (and btw, this fiction that over-represents rural areas and rural interests is not exclusive to the US - you see it at work in most of Western Europe). I do have tremendous respects for Iowa and Iowans (I mean this is the State that gave the world the Amanas...) but still.

[CT]
One million page hits against Bush!!!

The motivation here is not strengthening democracy. The states are just trying to get more than their share of campaign spending by candidate entourages, media crews and partisan advertising. The Iowa primary must be second only to corn as a revenue producer.

In a very short sighted fashion, the two parties continue to shoot themselves in the foot. By running a 2-year presidential campaign and effectively choosing their nominees by February 2008, they are leaving the door wide open for a viable third party run. While not historically feasible, voter discontent generally and lack of interest in the two major party nominees could change the formula. That chemistry, comblined with a candidate like Bloomberg who can bankroll his own campaign, could make a third party run more feasible in 2008 than ever before.

Unlike Perot in 1992, Bloomberg is creditable with experience as CEO of a major corporation and New York City, currently a Republican with a Democratic past. He would run as a centrist with the potential to draw support form independents, Democrats and Republicans alike.

I think that the scuffling over ever earlier primary dates and the DNC allowing it could prove damaging well beyond this election.

From your lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster's ears.

Actually, the majority of the U.S. population lived in the rural and unincorporated portions of the country until WW II. Even to this day, the majority of Americans do not live in the major urban areas. There is an argument to be made that suburbs be included into the urban areas since they are communities that depend on the larger cities for their existence. However, the primary reason that people live in the suburbs and rural ex-urbs (or bedroom communities as my wife prefers) is because they self identify with the non-urban populations.

Gallup reports that 77% of Democrats recently surveyed were familiar with all three frontrunners for the 2008 presidential nomination.

The findings: 94% are familiar enough with Clinton to rate her, 85% with Edwards and 84% with Obama. This could be good news for Clinton, who has managed to keep her wide national lead despite other candidates becoming better known.

So much for the O-Bomb-A crowd's attributing Clinton's lead to name recognition.

Read closer (you're wrong)

Of course, "strong approval" is a much tougher measure of name recognition than the percentage who are simply able to rate a candidate. Still, this report leads me to a thought that may have some bearing on whether the Democratic standings will change as voters continue to learn more about the candidates: "Name recognition" alone is a grey concept. Voters may recognize a name but still know little or nothing about the person behind it.

Most pollsters measure name recognition by counting those able to rate a public figure favorably or unfavorably. Gallup's question, for example, asks respondents to report "if you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of these people -- or if you have never heard of them." However, minor differences in the answer categories presented can sometimes produce different results. Consider the percentages able to rate the three Democrats on recent surveys by Gallup, the Pew Research Center and CBS News (here and here; I've used the results among all adults to keep the populations comparable)

snip

CBS News is the only pollster of the three to offer respondents the option to say they are either "undecided" or that they "haven't heard enough yet" about a candidate "to have an opinion." When I exclude the "undecided" respondents, the percentage able to rate each candidates drops considerably, with the biggest drops for Edwards and Obama. My educated guess is that much of the uncertainty comes from a lack of information; voters know the name, but not much about it.

How do I know that? Aside from many years of listening to voters offer what they know about vaguely familiar politicians in focus groups, we have some direct evidence. The same CBS News survey also includes open-ended questions asking respondents for "the first thing that comes to mind" about each candidate.

pollster blog

Do you think you're changing anyone's mind with the infantile "O-Bomb-A" name-calling? Hint: you're not. You only make yourself look bad.