Dean needs to put a stop to this, by telling these early states that if they move up their primaries their electoral votes will not be counted and that goes for my home state of Florida. I don't care for this egotistical gamemanship of one upping on all the early states. It is making a mockery of our voting system in the US. What do you think the rest of the world is thinking about the US? If the US who is supposed to me so forward thinking cannot get it's act together on such an important issue as voting than maybe we should be considered a country that is on par with third world countries.

"At the rate we're going, the Iowa caucus might have already been held last week."

That zinger made me laugh, Eric.

Ugh, there are going to be 12 caucusgoers in Iowa if they hold them during the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Loved the part about how Karl Levin is involved. For God's sake, as many Senators from both parties as we have running this time, can't someone provide some adult supervision here? This is absolutely insane. We're going to be left with the nominations sewed up by February 22, leaving us with a general election season nine months long. Nine months with the oppo research gloves really off. That'll elevate the level of political discouse in this country, won't it?

I'd say hundreds might be on the low side, even if it is earlier in December (can't imagine they'd hold the caucuses the last week of December). Trying to turn out both in and out of state students (and other university people) during finals won't be pretty. My guess is that this has the potential to really hurt Obama and to benefit Clinton.

Mebbe. I've said before that I think Iowa and New Hampshire's permanent first status is irrational, but I don't see why this debacle is necessarily going to lead to a better solution, unless the parties develop much more organizational moxie than they've shown thus far. At the moment, it just looks like a longer schedule, with perhaps a slight change in the cast of early states. If we're going to fix the system, we need to give serious thought as to its replacement -- here, it's just shuffling the cards and prolonging an already too-long process.

There's an old saying in the music business: "If it's a hit in Ohio, it's a hit."

I don't see anything wrong with Iowa and New Hampshire having an "overstated" say in the process. The candidates run mini-campaigns in those states and we get an idea of who's going to run a good national campaign. I think it's extraordinarily asinine that these other states are moving their primaries up, though. Do they seriously think Iowa and New Hampshire are going to allow themselves to get knocked out of the first two positions? This does no one any good at all.

How would you fix things?

Let's just hold the national election in November 2007, get it overwith and send Bush back to Crawford a year early. No one is paying attention to the Constitution anyway, and even the Republicans would be releaved.

O/T: could someone tell the administrators that the "edwards sniped for wealth again" link on the front page comes to this article, and needs to be fixed?
thanks!

If the US who is supposed to me so forward thinking cannot get it's act together on such an important issue as voting than maybe we should be considered a country that is on par with third world countries.

As far as democracy goes, we're actually well behind some developing countries such as Brasil and India. See ballot-access.org for examples of how the big two parties have systematically worked to keep everyone else off the ballot. Then read up on poportional representation and see how the truly democratic countries see to it that many more people have a voice.

The most galling part is, in so many Congressional districts Republicans and Democrats won't even bother running against each other's incumbents! How is that democracy? It's like a supermarket that offers you Corn Flakes or Raisin Bran, except that some locations only offer you Corn Flakes, and others only Raisin Bran. But you're an American, so you get a choice! (As long as you choose what's chosen for you, of course.)

And save the anti-Nader vitriol. I'm actually a Libertarian and don't care a fig about Nader, but regardless, it's beside the point. In a functioning democracy using PR or IRV people could express preference for the Green Party and not be hectored about "wasting" their vote by those who considered themselves entitled to those votes. In reality most of us are wasting our votes, since we live in safe states and districts that don't have competitive races.

I don't know if it would even be relevant in 2012 and 2016, but I wish the democrats could schedule their primaries in May---maybe 3 or 4 states like New Hampshire and Iowa could go in January, but if there was that much time to dissipate the momentum of those early states, it would be much more representative for the rest of the nation.

The democrats could cut the costs of running for the nomination that way---the early campaigning and fundraising would lose some of their importance.

Republican interests are best served by the way things are--plus--the way they seem to be going. Long, expensive campaigns, paid for by the special interests, where people tire of hearing substantive issues being discussed.