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<\/a>The 2016 presidential primary season has started for real–kicked off by the Iowa caucuses. But our current presidential primary system is a disaster for political discourse, for serious candidates, and for our democracy. Just listen to what passes for political debate\u2014particularly among the 2016 crop of Republican primary candidates\u2014and you have all the evidence you need. For candidates, it\u2019s all about proving that they are more right-wing conservative than the next person. And it\u2019s all in pursuit of the brass ring of winning the earliest primaries\/caucuses in the most conservative states: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.<\/p>\nAnd that, right there, is the problem. Because of the structure of the primary cycle, frontloaded with these ultra-conservative states, candidates feel compelled to tailor their messages to extreme right, because that\u2019s who is motivated to come out for the caucuses and primaries. In addition, the early states have no big cities, so candidates do not feel the need to talk about the issues that concern urban dwellers: No mention of Ferguson, Black LIves Matter, Flint’s poisoned water system, etc.\u00a0 They are interested only in pandering to the narrow concerns of rural and small-town voters, because their votes are the ones they need to build momentum for the rest of the crazy primary season.<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the solution? A total re-think of the way we determine the presidential nominees from each party.
\nI\u2019m not proposing that we go back to the smoke-filled rooms of yore, when party bosses decided who the candidates would be, without any input from the electorate. [There is, however, a strong whiff of a new kind of party-boss smoke out there. It comes from the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Missouri\u2019s billionaire would-be-kingmaker Rex Sinquefield, the Wicks Brothers of Texas, and other super-wealthy men. They\u2019re spending huge sums of money to push their personal agendas by buying politicians and funding their campaigns. But let\u2019s put that aspect of our current system aside, for the moment, and look at other alternatives.]<\/p>\n
Many people have said that a better structure would consist of a series of regional primaries. But before I get that\u2014and some of the other ideas that have been floating over the years, here is\u2026<\/p>\n
A brief history of primaries<\/h3>\n
It\u2019s easy to think that the current primary structure is a built-in part of American political history, and, therefore, is not to be tinkered with\u2014you know, that whole \u201coriginalist,\u201d traditionalist thing. It\u2019s not. Neither political parties nor primary elections are included in the U.S. Constitution<\/a>: Primaries evolved over time, invented by political parties. There were primaries in some states in the early 1800s, but they were mostly non-binding, and they gave way to the party-boss system by the mid-1800s.<\/p>\n The current system of binding primaries [in which delegates are required to vote for their state\u2019s nominee in the first round of voting at the national convention] is actually rather new.<\/p>\n According to Wikipedia:<\/p>\n The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination despite not winning a single primary under his own name. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned a panel led by Senator George McGovern \u2013that recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation.<\/p>\n A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The now-all-important Iowa caucus began just 40 years ago. The New Hampshire primaries began 60 years ago, and they have become the center of attention in the battle to nominate the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates. It\u2019s obvious that the current system is terribly skewed, front-loaded with rural states that represent a tiny fraction of the ultimate number of delegates, and whose issues and preferences do not remotely represent the mainstream of American political discourse.<\/p>\n But changing the system has proven to be a Sisyphean task, because states love going first and don\u2019t want to surrender the advantages first-ness brings\u2014even if sharing in a regional primary would be better for the common good of our electoral system and democracy.<\/p>\n Elected officials, political scientists, pundits, party leaders and many others\u2014although I doubt that the list includes many state party chairpeople–have suggested alternative systems. The Congressional Record is littered with failed proposals going back decades. You can look \u2018em up: 1980, 1985, 1991, 2007, 2011 for example. But, for what it\u2019s worth, here are some current ideas:<\/p>\n Fix The Primaries <\/a>offers a handy summary of a range of alternatives–the links take you to helpful infographics with more detail. Solutions–some more logical than others– include:<\/p>\n The American Plan<\/a> The National Plan<\/a> The Delaware Plan<\/a> Interregional Primary Plan<\/a> Rotating Regional Plan<\/a> Regional Lottery Plan<\/a> One Day National Primary<\/a> The Texas Plan<\/a> Please, people. Get over yourselves and pick one, already. [Personally, I think the Rotating Regional Plan–proposed by the National Association of Secretaries of State–makes the most sense.]<\/p>\n Political thought leaders on both the right and the left are dismayed by what they are seeing in the current system\u2014and I use that term loosely\u2014of presidential primaries. Even Republicans are recoiling from the monster created by our current system. On the left, Think Progress recently issued a call to \u201cban the Iowa Caucus,\u201d<\/a> stating that:<\/p>\n It\u2019s as if Rube Goldberg designed a method of polling, implemented it in an unusually unrepresentative state, and then decreed that this state\u2019s votes would receive greater weight than other state in the union.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I\u2019ll be watching the 2016 presidential primaries closely. But I\u2019m going to be grumpy about the whole process, no matter who comes out ahead\u2014even if it\u2019s somebody I like\u2014because the system stinks. And even though I know that performance-enhancing substances are banned in other professional sports, what I think American presidential politics needs is a large dose of Human Political Grow-Up Hormone.<\/p>\nIowa and New Hampshire<\/h3>\n
Resistance to change<\/h3>\n
Alternatives to the current presidential primary system<\/h3>\n
\nStarting with small states and working towards large ones, the American Plan also incorporates random order to afford big states the chance to go early as well.<\/p>\n
\nThis plan calls for a national primary where voters can vote once between January and June and ballots are counted and tallied at the start of each month.<\/p>\n
\nThis plan relies on “backloading” the primary schedule, that is, allowing less populated states to go first and the most populated to go last.<\/p>\n
\nSix groups of primaries or caucuses would be scheduled between March and June. On each date, a state or group of smaller states from one of six geographic regions of the country would go together.<\/p>\n
\nUnder the proposal, the country is divided into four regions – Northeast, Midwest, West, and South, which take their turns voting first, then one region per month from March to June.<\/p>\n
\nState order would be decided by lottery on New Year’s Day. Two small states would be randomly selected to go first, followed by four regions also determined randomly.<\/p>\n
\nThis plan simply calls for primaries and caucuses in all states on the same day.<\/p>\n
\nStates are divided into four rotating groups with equal number of both electoral votes and total number of states per each group to provide an equal number of predominantly Republican states and predominantly Democratic states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n