The Presidential Primary System is Broken and Needs to Be Fixed

On November 8th of 2006, the day after the mid-term elections were held and two full years before the next Presidential Election, Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa, announced his candidacy for the Presidency. This marked the official beginning to the next election cycle. Needless to say, numerous other candidates followed suit and began campaigning in earnest. The reason for this early start is the fact that states have been moving up their primaries so early that it has forced candidates to campaign for two years before the general election. For example, by February 6th 2008, over half of the states will have held their primaries or caucuses. This front loading of primaries is a major concern and it needs to be fixed.

In order to understand the largeness of the problem, we must first look to a little bit of history regarding the presidential primaries. The Presidential Primary system has changed throughout the years. The primary system essentially began with the Republican primary race between then sitting President Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. Primaries continued to evolve because of various events, discussed in detail at Wikipedia. Essentially, we have reached a point where states that are near the front of the election process wield a great deal of influence upon who is selected as a presidential candidate while those states who wait are basically forgotten.

So, why is the current primary system causing such a problem? The biggest reason is the front-loading of primaries. The first presidential primary, while usually around the first part of February, is not going to be held on January 5th. However, New Hampshire has yet to even decide on a final date for their primary, because they feel that they should be the first primary and have talked about having their primary in December of 2007. There is a possibility that each parties candidates will be chosen before Valentine's Day. This early voting creates several problems of its own. First off, states that have their primaries after their candidates have been chosen are essentially having their votes taken away from them. In states such as South Dakota, that have voted for a Republican candidate for President every year except for in 1968 and 1932, the problem is even worse. As a Democrat, your vote essentially doesn't matter in a Presidential election because of the electoral college. The only way you had to influence the presidential outcome was by participating in the primaries. However, with the current system in place, SD doesn't vote until June, long after the decision on who will represent the Democratic Party on the national level has been decided. This creates disenfranchisement for Democrats in the "Red States" that have late primaries. Secondly, states that are not in the mix also loose out on a lot of money that would have otherwise been spent in their state by the candidates. This is of course one of the major reason why states have been trying to move up their election cycles so they can get more money.

The second major problem with having the front loading of primaries is a drawn out election process. This drawn out process creates problems of its own. First off, only candidates that have the ability to raise a lot of money and do it early enough are considered "qualified" candidates. So we are telling candidates that it doesn't matter if you have good leadership qualities or have some excellent ideas on how to run our country, but can you raise a butt load of money early and often. If our perception of candidates being bought off by those who have money isn't bad enough, we are making it worse because of the early primaries. Candidates have to start raising money long before they "officially" declare their candidacy for the President. Secondly, a lot of people get turned off by a long campaign. There is such a bad turnout when it comes to voting in America it is embarrassing. A long campaign doesn't bring more people in, but it does turn people off because they are tired of hearing the same candidates saying the same things.

Finally, the third major area of concern with front-loading of primaries is a slippery-slope argument. If New Hampshire is going to move their primary to December, what will stop them from moving it up again in 2012 and again in 2016? Soon we'll have a primary election the day after the mid-term election. If that sounds far-fetched, think back to 1992 and ask yourself then if the idea of having a primary election 11 months before the general election would ever happen. While I doubt it would ever get that out of hand, the fact remains that every presidential election, the primaries are started earlier and earlier. This needs to stop. Thankfully, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) have come up with a plan.

The NASS Rotating Regional Presidential Plan has been in development over the past several years and is now ready to be voted on and it needs to be passed now. According to the NASS website, what this plan does is create a set standard that we can follow each election cycle that is fair and solves for many of the problems that have been addressed. The plan sets up four regional groupings that will vote on the same day. A lottery will be held to determine the region who gets to vote first and so on. After the first election cycle, the region that went first would then move to fourth and the second region would move up and so on. This would allow each region to be the "first out of the gate" every fourth presidential election.

Iowa and New Hampshire would be able to continue with their separate caucus and primary. After that, the first region would vote on the first Tuesday in March, the second region would vote on the first Tuesday in April, the third region in May and the last region in June. This system solves not only the problem of states trying to move up, but every other problem. States that didn't have a say in years past will now be able to influence the outcome of the election. The election cycle won't seem so long and the slippery slope argument goes out the window.

I would encourage anyone who gets annoyed with the current system to contact your Secretary of State and tell them to adopt this plan. However, it will take more than that. Contact the head of each party and tell them to do the same thing. Put an end to the madness that is the primary system and get something set in stone that is not only fair, but makes sense. Hopefully in 2012, the candidates for President won't be decided in 2011. Unless something is done however, we are moving in that direction.