Changing the presidential primary process

When I was 18 years old, I visited a prospective college and interviewed for a scholarship. A panel that included a current student and a professor talked to me for about 20 minutes. The professor, upon hearing I was interested in politics asked me how I thought the presidential primary system should be reformed. The criticism being the unfairness that some small, unrepresentative states had disproportionate say.

I can't remember my exact response, but I think it boiled down to I have idea in the world. I didn't get the scholarship.

Now over a decade later, having studied political science in college, and worked in politics for seven years, I still am unsure how to answer that question.

I'm amazed that for all the talk about the process this year and how it works and doesn't work, there seems to have been only a little discussion on how to actually fix it for next time. And once this election season is behind us, this will all become a distant memory and people won't have the fire under them to change things for 2012 in any substantive way. Remember during the 2000 election mess all the talk about reforming or doing away with the electoral college? I remember bold predictions that the electoral college would be gone before 2004. Fat chance at that.

One hopes that both Democrat and Republican elites understand that change needs to happen. The Republicans didn't get too burned this time, but it could almost as easily been them with two candidates threatening to go all the way to the convention. The only "advantage" the Republicans have in this respect is the existence of some winner-takes-all primaries that serve to prop up the candidate in the lead. Despite some arguments from Clinton supporters, the Democrats should not emulate the undemocratic electoral college in their candidate selection process.

Who can say what should be done then? There are alternative plans out there to make it more orderly. But first, maybe some guiding principles.

• Democracy should be valued in this process. Having a presumptive nominee before half the country has voted is undemocratic. The most obvious solution would be in part to have a more condensed season.
• Less populous states shouldn't get overwhelming disproportionate say in the candidates. Still, efforts should be made to give some protection to smaller states and rural constituencies in general.
• The process should at least make sense to voters.

Plans have been proposed to put states into regional groups or non-regional groups (either randomly or by relative size) and then having the primary season spaced out over several months between the regions/groups. In some plans the regions/groups would be in the same order each time and other plans suggest a rotation in order or lottery. Political scientist Larry Sabato suggests a regional approach with a lottery on January 1 of the election year to determine the order of regions, preventing candidates from camping in the early states for the previous 12 months. (Or in John Edwards' case, 36 months.)

The main weakness in many of the proposals is that it puts up further roadblocks against second-tier candidates being able to use grassroots organizing to be made into contenders. The argument is that it makes money all important. Frankly, I don't know if that changes much between the status quo and these plans. A candidate will always need lots of money to compete, but I don't think there is strong evidence that one can buy their way to the White House.

All plans still require immense grassroots organizing, aside from possibly the idea of a national primary, which is politically unrealistic anyways.

I think the rotating regional primary makes the most sense. The plan wouldn't necessarily put 1/4 of the country on the same date, but on the same month. Region 1 states could have their contests as early as the first Tuesday of March. Many would go on the first Tuesday, but some might take the lesson from this year and realize that earlier isn't necessarily better, especially on a crowded day.

One variation favored by the National Association of Secretaries of State shown on the right, maintains an exception for the early Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, to occur in February. Personally, I think that would be fine, although maybe in the long term the Iowa and New Hampshire exceptions should be eliminated.

My main concern with the four regions is that the primary season is packed too tight. Here's what I dub the Five Regions Primary Plan. It does eliminate New Hampshire's and Iowa's standing. States are divided into 5 regions that rotate the order each 4 years. Territories that don't vote in the presidential general election but do send delegates to the party convention are split between two of the regions.

Regions would rotate every for years. States within the first region could choose primary/caucus dates within the month of February. The second region in March, third in April, fourth in May, and fifth in June. The parties would hold their conventions between July 15 and August 15. A bipartisan commission in the same spirit as the presidential debate commission would be appointed to adjust the regions following the census to keep them roughly equal in population/congressional districts and to play traffic cop on party convention date and host city conflicts.

The way that small states are respected is that they have the freedom in setting their own primary dates within the month. For example, I doubt any state in Region 1 would hold their primary the same date as California. By going before or after, they can stick out. Particularly on the year the region is first, small states can play a key role in winnowing down candidates; just probably not to the same degree as New Hampshire and Iowa have traditionally done. And that is a good thing.

Click on the region for details. Click on the link below for a larger map.


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As always, comments welcome!