The ‘revolutionary’ primary plan

August 2, 2007

By most reasonable standards, the existing presidential primary system is pretty tough to defend. Unless you live in Iowa or New Hampshire — and for some residents, even if you do — you know your state’s influence matters quite a bit less, and in some instances, not at all.

A move is afoot to overhaul how the system should work in the future.

Three senators — one Republican, one Democrat and one Independent — are proposing a plan that would revolutionize the nation’s presidential primary system.

Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) announced Tuesday they are proposing legislation that would institute a new primary structure that divides the country into four regions, with each region’s states voting in a different month.

The Regional Presidential Primary and Caucus Act, which would take effect in the 2012 elections, is a result of this year’s rush by states to the front of the line, with big states like California, New York and New Jersey moving to Feb. 5 and Florida jumping to Jan. 29.

According to an outline of the plan obtained by The Hill, this new system would “encourage the greatest number of good candidates to enter the race, allow voters an opportunity to hear all candidates’ ideas [and] ensure more Americans a chance to cast a meaningful vote.”

It’s a relatively straightforward proposal: states divided into the East (Region I), South (II), Midwest (III) and West (IV) regions. A lottery would be held to determine which region votes first, with one election per month until all the regions have voted (from March to June). The region that goes first in 2012 would be last in 2016.

There are two principal problems with the idea.

First, state primaries are dictated by state law. The Alexander-Klobuchar-Lieberman model would be, pardon the impression, a “massive federal takeover” of a system that has always been under the purview of state governments.

Now, as it happens, I don’t much care. It’s a national process for the highest national office in the federal system. If Congress wants to intervene to oversee a broken process that the states haven’t been able to work out on their own, it’s fine by me. I mention it, though, because I have a strong hunch there about 50 governors and several thousand state lawmakers who might see things differently.

Second, each region in the Alexander-Klobuchar-Lieberman plan would get a shot at going first — just as soon as the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are finished. The point, proponents say, would be to be protect the “traditional” first states. (Point of reference: the “tradition” is pretty modern, having started in 1952, and not having real meaning until 1960.)

In other words, Iowa and New Hampshire would get disproportionate influence and power in picking presidents because they’ve always had disproportionate influence and power in picking presidents.

I’m glad Alexander, Klobuchar, and Lieberman are taking a whack at this, but I think their plan may run into some resistance.

Any system that allows Iowa and new Hampshire to go first is unfair and wrong, period.

I am speaking as someone who used to live in Iowa and loved the idea of getting to meet and talk to all of the candidates.

The DNC and the RNC should change the system and refuse to allow Iowa and new Hampshire to challenge the system, period.

  • …with big states like California, New York and New Jersey moving to Feb. 5 and Florida jumping to Jan. 29.

    …Iowa and New Hampshire would get disproportionate influence and power in picking presidents…

    This is why climate change is a tough sale to Midwesterners. Some of them believe a shoreline change would be beneficial.

    Seriously, though, this isn’t hard. Have them all on the same day (and to preemptively counter the big money candidate argument, please show me one successful primary winning candidate who wasn’t big money?) or have them staggered, but kept the results secret until all voting is complete.

    If Americans could delay their gratification a bit and not need to know the results the second the votes were cast we could get rid of lousy electronic voting, extend the voting from one day to two weeks (opening up voting to more people), and, you know, actually count everyone’s votes instead of just guessing and certifying.

  • It seems to me that a series of national primaries would be the best way to go. The old system was made the way it was because the candidates simply couldn’t get their message out to more than one crowd at a time. Then came the age of television, with high costs of getting message out. But now, in the age of nearly-free streaming video, I can learn a lot more about a candidate’s positions than I would if I was in the room with him/her.

    What we need is an interactive portal where questions can be asked, where citizens could vote on which questions they would like answered, and where candidates could answer important questions using the time necessary instead of the 30 seconds that Tavis Smiley gives them.

    They should trash the old system. Scrap it along with the electoral college.

  • Iowa and New Hampshire must at all costs remain first. After all, their demographics so closely match those of the rest of America. That we’ve achieved energy independence and have universal health care is conclusive proof that the current regime provides us with great leaders.

  • Bias disclosure: I live in Iowa. I like going first.

    Two problems I see with the AKL Regional Model (three, if you count the fact that it has the name “Lieberman” on it):

    1) It favors money. Not as much as this year will, I grant you. But traditionally one of the big defenses of Iowa and New Hampshire are that they are small enough first tests that relative unknowns without big money connections can “get discovered.” We’ve only had two Dems become President in the past 40 years. The first of those, Carter, would have had no chance except for the low expense of competing in Iowa. Having to compete in 12-13 states simultaneously for the first test will require massive resources. The goal should be to undue the problems of this year, not eliminate the benefits that were seen in prior cycles.

    2) Pure regional primaries will result in pure regional candidates, which is a Bad Thing. The first test will still be the most important – there is no way to ever get around that, whether it is Iowa or the “Southern Region.” So in the year the Southern Region goes first, the odds are good that a Southern Regional candidate wins. The next cycle, the Western Candidate wins. I predict that makes the process much worse, not better.

    I would recommend instead that a primary calendar is established that looks like a megaphone: it starts with small numbers of delegates, and ends with huge numbers. That way candidates can still “be discovered,” yet a clinching number can’t be reached unless you pay attention to later states. Moreover, I would suggest that each month’s primary include a diversity of states in terms of geography and demographics.

    So February may be IA, NH, GA, and AZ (preserving tradition and all);
    March may be ME, TN, LA, MT, WA, KS, SC, and IN
    and then April and May would each have 12 states, with the remaining 14 plus DC in June, with the number of delegates rising in each month.

    That would seem to force a candidate to have national appeal while still allowing unknowns to build strength.

    The regional system (or other front-loaded systems) have the opposite problem of the present system: Iowa and NH go from having too much impact to all but the largest states having no impact. Lets say you have a one-day Western Regional primary. There may be 13 states involved, but nearly 100% of candidate time and resources will go to California, Arizona and Washington. The other 10 will have no impact – just an electoral reality. That seems no better/fairer than two small states having disproportionate impact.

    So yeah, changes are needed to solve what is happening this cycle. 4 big regions is not the answer.

  • I’m sort of afraid that some of this electoral reform is really just a trap. Lieberman’s involvment does not give me any hope.

    I’d rather we just did away with primaries and, at least for the purposes of the election, the political parties. Whoever fills out the required paperwork and gets the required signatures can run for office on Election day. Also, all qualified candidates would be invited to every single debate. Any debate where at least one qualified candidate is not invited should be considered an illegal campaign contribution.

  • The bit about needing to be approved by state governors and legislators dooms any reasonable plan from being enacted, unfortunately.

    Personally, I’d favor a single national primary no earlier than June (and I’d prefer July or even September), no conventions (they decide nothing anymore and art just extended live campaign commercials), mandated debates conducted according to a mandated format, and a vote on a weekend in November using uniform national voting standards and banning ballot initiatives. And I’ll readily concede that there’s as much chance of this coming to pass as there is of my being elected Queen of May.

    Federalism was a nice-sounding idea back in the 18th century. Today it’s an albatross.

  • The only reform the primaries need is to scrap them altogether and move to a voting system that doesn’t require them, such as approval voting, IRV, etc.

  • I have yet to see a convincing explanation for why it is a good thing to enable the “discovery” and nomination of relative unknowns. Carter is a good man and a decent human being but he was a mediocre president, and he just barely won against Ford despite all of Ford’s massive Watergate baggage. If what we’re nominating is somebody who’s supposed to go up against the other side’s strongest candidate, we should be picking somebody with a proven track record of playing in the big leagues.

    Agree that regional candidates would be a bad thing. Thus my preference for a national primary.

    I grew up in Iowa and used to vacation (as a kid) in New Hampshire. Both nice places, but I don’t see any reason why either deserves special electoral privileges.

  • jimBOB, i’m not sure what the right answer is, but if you look solely at ultimate results, when we have frontloaded to have something closer to a national primary, the results have been no better than Iowa and NH having all the power. Super Tuesday gave us Kerry – who would easily have won a national primary as well because he had nearly unlimited money. As a Presidential candidate, Kerry sucked. I’m not sure Clinton would have won an early national primary without NH for rehabilitation, but I have no doubt that Team Clinton was our best chance to win that election.

  • Don’t see any incentive for states to go along with this. And as long as you keep the Iowa, New Hampshire thing going, it’s not the kind of proposal that anyone is likely to really enthusiastically back, as it remains unbalanced and unfair.

    A change is in order, but not this change. And frankly, if Americans can’t be bothered to change an electoral college system that resulted in the past 7 years of hell, and shows us as something less than a democracy where majority rules, then why should we expect this far more complicated and less important change to take place?

  • “If what we’re nominating is somebody who’s supposed to go up against the other side’s strongest candidate, we should be picking somebody with a proven track record of playing in the big leagues.”

    What do you mean by “Strongest”?

    The best ideas?
    The most eloquent?
    The best at raising money?

    Was Clinton the best only because he won?
    I would have preferred Paul Tsongas.
    I chose Howard Dean, was Kerry the strongest? Was no one able to beat George Bush? REALLY?

    This argument may be Panglossian.

    I’d like to try the megaphone approach but stretch it over 4 months, bi-monthly.

    Each election should be exponential so every primary date can change the front runner.

    1-2-4-8-16-32-64-128, adjusted to fit teh electoral votes.

    States vote in order of number of electoral votes, by lottery in case of a tie.

    Large states maintain their influence until the very end, but small states may influence the bigger ones later so they won’t be ignored.

    Montana, Alaska, DC, the Dakotas, Rhode Island and even New Hampshire would be front loaded while the election ends 4 months later with California Texas and New York all voting on the last day.

    Since we’re dreaming….

  • Zeitgeist, it’s hard to know how specific candidates would have fared under a different system, since they would all have readjusted their strategies in a different primary environment. I do believe that Clinton, despite his disastrous keynote at the ’88 convention, was pretty much the party establishment’s choice going into ’92. My guess is his team was good enough to find a way to win in a national primary environment, especially given the weakness of the other Dem candidates that year.

    Brad DeLong often writes about how our political system tends to elevate inexperienced outsiders since the DC insiders have already established implacable groups of internecine enemies. (Delong often likens it to the latter days of the Ottoman Empire, which brought in inexperienced provincials to be the Sultans, leaving them at the mercy of powerful Grand Viziers.) Having a primary system that reinforces this isn’t helpful, in my view.

  • What do you mean by “Strongest”?

    I was thinking, most likely to win the election. The other stuff is nice but secondary.

    Was Clinton the best only because he won?

    Candidates that don’t win are mostly useless. Paul Tsongas was not a serious contender and never would have been. Kind of like Kucinich. Plus he had cancer, and wouldn’t have survived to the end of his first term.

    WRT your idea of dividing up by states, IMHO states are an arbitrary and artificial construct. I’d like to eliminate their influence in national elections as much as possible.

    Remember it was deference to the prerogatives of states that produced the hideous abomination we know as the electoral college.

  • Nothing with Lieberman’s name on it will work. His name alone should condemn it as it already makes it highly suspicious and marked for failure. Jerusalem Joe has got to go. Maybe the anti-Christian wingnut Hagee needs to see how it fits in with his rapture plans so Joe knows how to plan it.

  • One day primary just like one day general. There is no need for the other gimicks. And while we are at it, do away with the electoral college. Just like so many other things with the nation, the problems are obvious, the solutions are doable and the majority of people usually support it, but the special interest few keep it from happening and the msm types keep the propaganda going.

  • Senator Alexander’s history of speeches on election reform can be found at: Senator Alexander’s Record of Speeches

    Senator Klobuchar’s history of speeches on election reform can be found at: Senator Klobuchar’s Record of Speeches

    Senator Lieberman’s history of speeches on election reform can be found at: Senator Lieberman’s Record of Speeches

    To learn more about how primaries work, please visit: Government 101: Elections

    For more information on elections and electoral reform please visit Project Vote Smart or call our hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART.

  • Our problems are far worse than a simple overhaul of the primary system. We need a complete revision of how we do government. No one wants to consider that, however. It is too radical.

    Personally, i am in favor of reforms that would lead to proportional representation, instead of the current winner-take-all system.

    I offer this link as a starting place for anyone interested:

    http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/prlib.htm

    The fact is, our currant system is broken. Any repair job we attempt is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

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