“The Republican primaries are a mess and need to be fixed. The only consolation there is that the Dem primary system is an even bigger mess. A small consolation but entertaining.”
They are definitely a mess. McCain had only won about 35% of the votes when he became the putative nominee. It’s as if states were electing governors and senators on one voting day with no runoffs. That’s a huge problem in these winner take all states.
If all delegates were distributed proportionally, McCain would have a small lead over, probably Romney and Huckabee and we’d definitely be looking at a brokered convention. That’s be a definite improvement over our 35% nominee John McCain.
And, the absurd amount of time and effort and money spent in Iowa and NH is beyond ridiculous. As much as those states would whine, we need to end that and have an initial voting day that includes several states from various parts of the nation (a mix of red and blue) that would be more representative of the nation as a whole.
I absolutely agree with you, lets fix the primaries.
Your ideas are as good as any I’ve heard. How about picking the states randomly for each Presidential election instead of ending the time spread for primaries? I do see some good in having a “season” where there are a succession of debates and state campaigns. That gives time and context for scrutiny and the opportunity for candidates to either excel or stumble. It gives time for the press to do some digging and for rebuttals all around.