I have a radical notion. Three primaries per week, every Tuesday, for 18 weeks. In alphabetical order. That’ll mix up the large and small states and the regions, though all the back-and-forth will increase the carbon footprints of the campaigns. And it will suck for voters in West Virginia and Wyoming.
As an alternative, stack the candidates’ home states near the top of the calendar, giving them their best shot at the “favorite son” vote; failing to win the home folks will shake out the weaker candidates early. The other states can draw lots.
The thing is, everyone acts like the “traditional” fist-in-the-nation status of Iowa and New Hampshire goes back to the founders. It wasn’t until Kennedy that a candidate ran in all 50 sates, and it wasn’t until after Carter that most of the delegates were picked in primaries and caucuses.
Before the ‘70s, most of the delegate seats were doled out by elected officials and party bosses in each party in each state. The notion of primaries as an integral part of the democratic process is actually pretty recent. Even today, third- (and fourth-, fifth-, sixth- ...) party candidates are chosen at party conventions without any public balloting.
What changed? In part, racist southern Democrats abusing the system. in the “Solid South” days, it was easier to elect a yellow dog than a Republican. When the law finally got around to guaranteeing, in a serious way, that black citizens be allowed to vote, the Democratic Party in the several states said that it was a private organization, and as such had a right to keep its membership all-white. The Democratic nominee was a near-certain winner in November. So blacks had won the right to vote ... but not when it really mattered.
The courts ruled, and rightly so, that the party primaries were part of the democratic process. Political parties might have a legitimate claim to be private organizations, but when their “private” proceedings determine who will appear on the November ballot, they’re intertwined with the state. At that point, they become an integral part of the electoral process, and denying access to that ballot is tantamount to robbing citizens of their right to vote. It was a transparent sham that the courts could read right through.
So the primary system as we know it today has really been tried seven or eight times; no wonder we’re still hashing out the details. And since most of the players in these negotiations are either candidates or states, each trying to maximize their own short-term tactical advantage rather than ensure a long-term, fair and just system for everyone nationwide, we can hardly be surprised that the result is such a muddle.
I think the States should be divided into 5 regions of 10 states each. On ten consecutive Tuesdays, starting the first one in February, one state in each region holds a primary. The order of the states within each region is randomly chosen each primary season.
I think this would end early campaigning, as you never know quite where the first primaries will be, and force the candidates to appeal to more diverse, national interests, instead of things like corn ethanol subsidies and retiree pensions concerns in traditional "early" states.