As most of you know, I live in NH. We traditionally hold the first primaries in the country for Presidential elections. Politicians favor us with an inordinate amount of attention, relative to the size of our population (41st according to Infoplease), since our primaries influence the rest of the primary elections.
This week, the Democratic Party ruled that all Michigan forfeited of its delegates by moving the date of its primary ahead of the official February 5th start date of the primary season. New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina have traditionally held early primaries/caucuses, and were thereby exempt from the wrath of the Party.
Look, I (somewhat) enjoy all the attention that the candidates pay to NH. I like that they visit my small (by populuation standards) us a great deal in the months leading up to the primaries. Though I do wish they'd stop calling my house. However, this 'race to be first' has gotten out of hand.
All state-residency-loyalty aside, here's how I see it. Wyoming is actually the least populated in the country. Let's let them hold their primaries/caucuses on January 2nd. Let's make everyone else hold theirs at least one week out after that. Currently, Wyoming waits until May to hold a convention to determine their selections. If they would like to continue to do that, perhaps they could offer to sell their slot!
Any state that would like to take on Wyoming's slot, could bid for the privilege. Wyoming is not a wealthy state. Imagine the benefit to them to selling off their preeminent position in the primaries. As the least populated state in the union, they could garner some financial benefit to their position (once every four years) by auctioning off their preeminent primary slot every fourth year in (say) October.
What do you think?
I promise to do a weekly hero post tomorrow. This one was just too annoying to pass off today.
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2 comments:
I'm not sure what the answer is, but the primary system is very screwed up. Then again, so is our general election. But still, we are now campaigning two years out for the Presidency. How long before the CiC has to campaign from day 1 in office?
The Presidential election process is totally screwed up. I always thought that the Electoral College thing was a throwback. The, the 2000 election cemented my opinion for all time.
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