Realign Presidential Primaries to Dilute Power of Region, Money

By Thomas Gangale
Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
13 April 1999

We are less than a year away from a train wreck in presidential electoral politics.

California, New York and the New England states will hold their presidential primaries on March 7, 2000. A week later, the Rocky Mountain states will follow. Then, on March 21, the Southern states will hold their "Super Tuesday" primaries.

In the space of only two weeks, half of all the delegates to both the Democratic and Republican conventions will be chosen.

This is a front-loading frenzy, as each region scrambles to get an earlier say, and therefore more political clout, in the presidential primary process.

What does this mean for America? That the people will be forced into a rush to judgment, rather than being allowed to cast a carefully considered ballot. It means that the candidate who can afford to carpet-bomb the airwaves across several dozen states simultaneously will grab the most delegates and lock up the nomination. It means that Big Money will gain even greater control over our political system.

The traditional schedule of presidential primaries was simply that - a tradition, one that evolved over decades, without rhyme or reason. New Hampshire always went first because, well . . . it was New Hampshire. The first significant break with tradition came in 1986-88, when a bloc of Southern states decided to hold their primaries on the same Tuesday in March. It came as no surprise that a governor from Arkansas won this Super Tuesday handily and walked away with the Democratic nomination. He was, after all, the South's favorite son.

But any region can play that game, and in 2000, a lot of them will. Last September, California decided to move its primary from June to the first week of March, leapfrogging Super Tuesday. A few months later, a bloc of Western states agreed to move their primaries to the week between California's new date and Super Tuesday.

Don't for a moment believe that it will stop there. New Hampshire already has had to move its primary to February to stay ahead of the pack. Clearly, March Madness will eventually give way to February Frenzy, and I invite you to come up with your own alliteration for January. In this brave new world of the 21st century, the word campaign will be obsolete in the political lexicon, to be replaced by blitzkrieg.

Now that the traditional schedule has collapsed, a formal national system needs to be established to return the process to a reasonable schedule so the nation can make an informed decision. The defect of the traditional presidential primary schedule was that the states voted in the same order year after year. A strong point, on the other hand, was that small states held the first few primaries, giving Big Money less of an early impact, since campaigning was almost literally door-to-door.

Early victories by less-moneyed candidates in small venues enable them to attract contributions that get them to later primaries. Such a process favors the candidate with the best message, rather than the loudest voice. A better presidential primary system, therefore, would meld the best feature of the traditional schedule - small early, bigger later - with the idea of moving the date of each state's primary from year to year.

Let's imagine a system featuring 10 two-week intervals, during which randomly selected states hold their primaries. (This 20-week schedule is the approximate length of the current presidential primary season.)

In the first interval, a randomly determined combination of states with a combined total of eight congressional districts would hold their primaries, caucuses or conventions. For example, Kentucky and Nevada might vote in the first round, or Colorado and Hawaii. In the second period - two weeks later - the eligibility number would increase to 16. Every two weeks, the combined size of the contests would grow by eight congressional districts, until a combination of states totaling 80 congressional seats - nearly one-fifth of the total - would be up for grabs in the 10th and last interval toward the end of June. As the political stakes increased every two weeks, a steady weeding-out would occur, as less successful campaigns dropped out. Such a system would foster the widest possible political debate, which would resolve to one or two viable candidacies by the end.

The random determination of the schedule every four years would be administered by the Federal Election Commission. The system also would be reformulated every 10 years as districts were reapportioned based on the Census.

The schedule favors no one state or one region. And, as mentioned, the system enables the widest possible political debate early on. A successful candidate need not start out well-heeled but will cross the finish line fully vetted. He or she need not hail from any particular region of the country but must appeal to the whole nation. America deserves such a president, and America deserves a rational, systematic primary process for the 21st century.