Messy, But Not a Mess

pecos bill:

you ought to read more of George Will. He has criticized Bush et al for their overextension of the executive power. He is certainly a conservative, but not at all a partisan. Although his championing of Rudy seems to be a conundrum. It will be interesting to see how the next 50 weeks shape that opinion.

Dr. Will raises an interesting point, and his basic argument -- that the current primary system should not be repaired by the federal government is correct. The principal objections to the current system of ad-hoc primary dates come from the parties, who believe the current system incorporates strong incentives to front-load the primaries. On the evidence, this is correct; we may yet have a primary in December 2007, if Wyoming moves its primary to the first Tuesday in January and New Hampshire reacts by moving its forward to maintain its first-in-the-nation tradition. The parties think that this front-loading leads to a process which determines a nominee very early, and gives undue weight to strength in a couple of small states and with fund-raisers. These beliefs also appear correct: it is widely felt that both parties' nominees will be finalized on Feb. 5th, and that Gov. Romney is one of the two leading candidates for the GOP nomination. Gov. Romney is in fact in fourth place in national polls, but is running very well in both Iowa and New Hampshire and has raised a great deal of money.

But if the parties have the problem, so to the solution is in their grasp. The parties, after all, allocate seats to states at their national conventions, and there is no reason why the primary date should not be a factor in that decision. One scheme would allocate seats to states by population, but then apply a multiplier dependent on primary date. So states which held primaries in June would receive their full complement of delegates; states which held primaries in May half their complement; in April, one-quarter; March, one-eighth, and so on. States would then be free to choose their primary dates, balancing numerical weight at the convention against the presumed influence gained by voting early.

I assume that the ultimate upshot of this would be two or three Super Tuesdays, with New Hampshire and perhaps Iowa voting a month before the first of the Super Tuesdays. Smaller states, without many convention delegates to start with, would go early. New Hampshire clearly values delegate count far less than priority, and so it will presumably cheerily sacrifice weight to any extent necessary. Large states such as California, Texas, Florida, New York, and so on, have so many delegates that they would all wait until June to hold primaries. I would assume that very few states would voluntarily sacrifice 75% of their delegates or more just to be early, so it seems likely that most states would hold off till June, and a number of small states would vote in May, and only a very few in April or earlier. To maintain its lead, New Hampshire will vote in March or April, maintaining its splendid isolation.

Constitution? You mean we still have one? I thought we did away with that! Did someone write up a new one?

Funny how Will mentions the Constitution with regard to the elections, but has been totally silent about Bush/Cheney's abject disregard for and butchery of same!

I would agree with Mr. Will, for the most part, but I believe that the real mess is debates which are not. The current system of debates gives little chance for real identification of a candidates real views and plans for the future if elected to the presidency. I am not sure what a better system of debates is, but I am sure it is not what we are witnessing now. Debates on one or two questions at a time with real elaboration expected
would seem a better choice than the shotgun debates with no elaboration we currently are witnessing.