People ask "Why don't more good people run" and the answer is they have better things to do with their lives than fiddle with Virginia.
Our little team of Fascist princes and princesses running the local party have left us with two choices ~ a loser none of us agree with and a mad man.
It's time for some Seppuku at the top before the party just disappears into a miasma of ausfharts and barks!
I can't agree with this.
On principle, federalism and state's rights are important. Setting election rules is primarily a state responsibility and I don't want to see the federal government or the national parties setting eligibility rules. Federalism exists for a reason, and giving the federal government or even the national parties more power over who can run for the presidency could easily generate serious unintended consequences.
Also, on pragmatic grounds, our current system is not bad. We have several early races in relatively small states — Iowa and New Hampshire — where presidential candidates are forced to run for office the way Iowans and Yankees run for city councils, boards of selectmen, mayor, and county commission. Forcing one-on-one contact with voters and forcing candidates to submit to questioning in small groups is not a bad thing. Adding South Carolina to put a Southern voice into that early state mix is probably going to end up being a good thing, too.
The result is candidates who would never stand a chance in large states because they don't have the money for major TV ad buys have the opportunity to get their message out to voters in one-on-one interactions. They're forced to have a very good on-the-ground organization in Iowa, New Hampshire, or both. That can generate the money for a grassroots candidate to emerge and get the money needed to challenge the better-funded “establishment” candidates in Super Tuesday and later races.
Without Iowa and New Hampshire, we would see both parties dominated by elite party insiders and an occasional wealthy independent candidate capable of self-funding. The result would be that conservative voices would be drowned out and never even get heard.
This year, the problem isn't that conservative voices aren't getting heard but rather that there are too many conservative voices and no solid “anti-Romney” has emerged. Maybe we don't have anyone in the current crop of candidates. Maybe we have several and they're destroying each other. I don't know. What I do know is we have a major problem if Iowa and New Hampshire don't do their jobs in narrowing the field.