Over Before It Has Begun

The presidential primary season turns 'goofy' in a sea of money, ego, and hubris

Andrew Gumbel
Los Angeles City Beat
4 October 2007

Many of us may think the season for nominating presidential candidates has barely begun. In fact, though, it is almost over.

The word “season” is generous to the point of absurdity. What we’re looking at is not so much a process of debates, ferocious campaigning, candidate meltdowns and dramatic reversals of fortune like the ones we remember from presidential races past. Instead, it’s going to be more like the opening weekend of a big-budget Hollywood spectacular.

It’s not going to be about quality. It’s not going to be about enduring appeal. It’s going to be all about money and marketing, image-making and branding, and the brute act of getting as many bodies to the polls as humanly possible between dawn and dusk on Tuesday, February 5.

After that, any outstanding questions about who is going to run in November will be academic. Almost exactly half the states are holding their primary that day, including most of the biggies like California and New York. Only the best-funded candidates have a prayer of competing in any meaningful sense, because they – or at least their campaigns – will have to be in several places at once.

There is of course a remedy to the escalating madness. A Marin County political scientist called Thomas Gangale has worked out a whole system he calls the American Plan, whereby the primary season would be composed of eight or 10 key dates starting with the smaller states and building up to the largest states. The exact order would vary from election year to election year, to keep things fair.

The idea is that candidates, even the less well funded ones, would have a chance to do some “retail” politicking in the smaller states and earn votes on the merits of their platforms. If they did well, they could then raise more money and be in a position to compete in the larger states. The better funded candidates, meanwhile, would have to work harder – simply bombarding the airwaves with negative ads won’t cut it.

The idea has been endorsed by the electoral reform group FairVote, among others. Theoretically speaking, there is little to dislike. Even the two major parties acknowledge the primary process is spinning out of control – the former Clinton aide Harold Ickes, now a DNC official, recently described it as "goofy."

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