Choosing them

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

Every four years, as the presidential elections draw near, the furor begins over the primary/caucus process to select the nominees of the two major parties.

At this point, the Iowa caucus will be on Jan. 14, 2008, followed by the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 22 and the South Carolina primary on Jan. 29. Several states are planning or talking about holding primaries on Feb. 5, including California, Illinois and New Jersey. (The Wisconsin primary is scheduled for Feb. 19.)

The problem is that citizens in every state, understandably, want their vote to count. But too often, by the time a state holds its primary, the nominees are already chosen. Thus there's been a great deal of positioning and jockeying to move to the head of the line, leading to more and more early primaries. Plus, Iowa and New Hampshire continue to insist that they will do whatever it takes to have the first caucus and primary.

There are a couple of possible solutions to the problem. The first would be to let Iowa and New Hampshire continue to be first. They both have that tradition and it should count for something, as atypical as those two states may be. Then, on perhaps Feb. 26, schedule a national primary/caucus, when citizens in all the other states would make their choice known. That would give the candidates plenty of time to campaign and all votes in all states would count. Of course much of the attention would go to the bigger states, but that seems to happen anyway, no matter what.

Another solution would be to follow Iowa and New Hampshire with waves of primaries/caucuses, on perhaps Feb. 12, March 5 and March 26. The primaries/caucuses would be set up so that the small and medium-sized states would make their choices in the first or second primary and the largest states would vote on March 26. The main thing would be to avoid critical mass before the final date - that is make sure no candidate could have enough delegates locked up to guarantee the nomination before March 26. That way citizens in all states could feel that their votes counted.

An additional benefit would be the building excitement as voters lined up behind their candidates leading up to the final primary day when someone could clinch the nomination. Or possibly no one would sew up the race and there would be a truly open convention - something that hasn't happened in the memory of most Americans.

The system we have now doesn't work well. Solutions are possible. But don't expect any to be enacted for 2008. Even 2012 isn't a sure thing. There needs to be some cool thinking to solve, rather than continue the mess we have now.