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August 20, 2006
Notes from Ferdy - Democrats Sort of Agree on New Primary Schedule
One of the biggest problems we face in Presidential elections is that the primaries cease to matter after the beginning of March. John Kerry was essentially unopposed after March 3 in 2004, and in 2000 John McCain gave up on March 9. Kerry's swift victory was especially surprising since prior to any delegates being chosen, Howard Dean was far and away the front-runner.
In any case, the result is that only half the states get to participate in the nomination process, and the conventions themselves are completely useless. This weekend, the Democratic National Committee decided to not do something about this problem. Instead, they moved Nevada and South Carolina to the beginning of the schedule. The stated reason was to make the racial make-up of the early primaries more like the racial make-up of the Democratic party voting base. Nevada is heavily unionized and has a large Hispanic population; South Carolina has a large African-American population.
In 2004, Nevada had 32 delegates and South Carolina 55. A total of 2162 were needed to clinch the nomination. So the race will still be over in early March, and neither state will make a dent in the final total; however, they provide additional opportunities for a candidate to achieve what the press calls momentum. McCain got momentum in 2000, and while it had no effect on his chances to capture the nomination, he is still milking it for press attention six years later. Similarly, a solid showing by Al Sharpton in South Carolina could give him a little more respectability than he currently enjoys.
A more serious problem is that there will be very little time for the candidates to campaign in South Carolina, Nevada, or New Hampshire. For example, after New Hampshire, there will be less than a week to campaign in South Carolina. Contrast this with Iowa: the caucus is on January 14, 2008 and campaigning will begin on November 9 of this year.
Unfortunately for them, the Democrats are missing the point. Over and over again we've heard that we need to pay more attention to what other countries are thinking about us. Therefore, the logical step would be to hold primaries in places like France or Lebanon. I mean, South Carolina is a nice place to visit, but it's hardly a foreign country. Similarly, I don't recall any leading Democrats saying that if we spent more time cultivating our friendship with Nevada we could have stopped the Lebanon War.
Here's an even better idea: if Iran continues to insist on building nuclear weapons, then we'll insist that the first Democratic primary be in Iran instead of Iowa. Imagine, if you will, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton holding campaign rallies in Tehran in the summer of 2007, or Tom Daschle touring the Persian Gulf coast delivering speeches. This would not only show the DNC's committment to tolerance and diversity, but I can imagine that the people of Iran would have very strong opinions about convincing President Ahmadinejad to stop all the bad things happening to them, and we could see some real changes.
I mean, if you're going to toss around bold headlines like Dems Shake Up Nominating Calendar then you have to give us something a little more radical than South Carolina.
Respectfully submitted,
Ferdinand T. Cat
# At Sun 2:39 AM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (0) | More Notes from Ferdy | Tags: Democrats Howard Dean humor John Kerry John McCain presidential race primaries
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