>>>I’m starting to think a national primary day sometime in March would be beneficial. This nonsensical focus on NH and Iowa has to stop.<<<
I couldn’t disagree with you more. I think it’s absolutely fabulous that we a system set up that puts essentially 3 states as the testing grounds before selecting the party nominee.
It just makes a lot of sense to see who is capable of organizing, setting up grassroots support, meeting people face-to-face, and holding daily scrutinized events before an informed public. And that these events are in smaller states where a great deal of the public can be addressed.
I’d hate to see the emphasis taken away from the early states, frankly. In a poll not too long ago, 40% of likely Republican voters couldn’t identify Rudy Giuliani as the one pro-choice Repubilcan candidate. I believe that figure was 7% in New Hampshire. The people know what’s going on there. They see it as a duty that comes every 4 years, and they take it seriously. Good for them!
If you don’t have the IO, NH, SC system in place, you’re going to have the candidates running to California and Florida and only those with huge name recognition getting anywhere. Frankly, that’s not what I want to see happening.
>> I think it’s absolutely fabulous that we a system set up that puts essentially 3 states as the testing grounds before selecting the party nominee.
It is simply out of whack that a state like New Hampshire (with a population of about 1.2 million) has a greater influence in primaries than Texas (population 21 million). There twice as many people living in the greater Houston area than in all of New Hampshire ... it makes no sense that NH should have a particularly large influence on nominations.
>> It just makes a lot of sense to see who is capable of organizing, setting up grassroots support, meeting people face-to-face, and holding daily scrutinized events before an informed public.
Imagine the organizing that would need to be done to campaign to the whole country (as it should be). I fail to see why New Hampshire voters should get catered to, while the rest of the nation is ignored.
I want to judge for myself - I don’t need New Hampshire voters as a buffer to test grassroots organizing and face-to-face talents. I’d like the opportunity to see all the candidates in action in my home state ... instead, we’re used as a fundraising state for New Hampshire campaigning. We’ve got to pay $1,000 a head to get into an event in Texas ... while candidates go out of their way to meet every lousy voter in Podunk, New Hampshire.
>> And that these events are in smaller states where a great deal of the public can be addressed.
So a great deal of the NH public is directly addressed ... and NOBODY in the remaining 49 states is even acknoledged unless they’re holding a checkbook? That doesn’t make sense.
>> I’d hate to see the emphasis taken away from the early states, frankly. In a poll not too long ago, 40% of likely Republican voters couldn’t identify Rudy Giuliani as the one pro-choice Repubilcan candidate. I believe that figure was 7% in New Hampshire.
Maybe if they’d leave NH for more than 15-minutes this wouldn’t be the case. This is EXACTLY the problem! Candidates are spending loads of money and time talking to and informing 1.2 million people in New Hampshire ... and precisely ZERO speaking to the rest of the population. The population is uninformed BECAUSE of the excessive focus on New Hampshire - not the other way around. New Hampshire isn’t a bastion of extraordinary voters ... they just get pampered and catered to so much that they’re more informed.
>> The people know what’s going on there. They see it as a duty that comes every 4 years, and they take it seriously. Good for them!
They know what’s going on? In 1996 they voted for Pat Buchanan, and in 2000 they voted for John McCain. They’ve been wrong in the last two contested Republican primaries. I question their qualifications to decide for the rest of the country.
Perhaps the rest of the country might see it as a “duty” if candidates paid any attention to the rest of the country. Instead, people like you would rather cede the responsibility to the miniscule population of New Hampshire. There are plenty of people outside of NH that take this seriously ... and plenty more that might if they thought their state mattered in the primaries. The nomination will likely be decided before Texas ever votes ... why should we care?
>> If you don’t have the IO, NH, SC system in place, you’re going to have the candidates running to California and Florida and only those with huge name recognition getting anywhere. Frankly, that’s not what I want to see happening.
I see no reason that a California, Texas, Florida, New York system would be any more absurd than a New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina system. At least they’d speak to a larger segment of the population if the primaries were focused on larger states. Right now, they’re speaking to a miniscule population (4M people in SC, 1.2M in NH, and 3M in Iowa) that has a hugely excessive influence in the primary system. Assuming EVERY person in SC, NH and Iowa is spoken to ... that’s 3% of the population. There are more people in TX than in those three states combined.
The current primary system makes little sense - and gives excessive and undue influence to an insiginificant minority of voters in three VERY small states ... while entirely ignoring the 97% of the population living outside of those three states.
H
>> It just makes a lot of sense to see who is capable of organizing, setting up grassroots support, meeting people face-to-face, and holding daily scrutinized events before an informed public.
It also should be noted that nationwide primary organizing and a nationwide primary election day would more mirror the current system for the November elections. Perhaps it would be better to test national viability in the primary rather than local organization in New Hampshire.
If we want to test organization skills for the actual election, it would make more sense to make the primaries a national event that mimics the actual election.
H
I must agree with you on this. Without this “testing” system the only states that would see any of the serious candidates for the office of President would be the most populous states. Plus, specifics about each candidate and their political ideology would not be available for public discourse if there were but one national primary.