Reply #7: They are 'front-loading' the primaries again. [View All]

As the Editorial suggests, they will increase the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, not lessen them. The more the states bunch up, the more the initial contests matter and the rest don't have breathing room to consider the candidates.

C-Span still has a video up from last winter's DNC meeting at which this was explained: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04031405_dnc.rm (Just listen to the first 45 minutes, this woman explains it all.)

The current primary system evolved as a means of taking the nomination out of the hands of party bosses and placing back in with the people. (The initial movement to do this started in 1968 but didn't really result in change until 1976, when Jimmy Carter won Iowa, then New Hampshire. He was such a long-shot outsider that he never would have been nominated under the old rules.)

However, everyone now wants to go first. And the DNC can't directly set primaries in some of the states. (It depends on whether or not it's a state-held primary, like New Hampshire or a DNC run one, like, I think the District of Columbia.) If states can't go first, they want to go as close to the first as possible. Therein lies the problem. Then we get what happened in 2004. Okay, that worked out for our guy, but it might have worked out even better for him if the battle had gone on longer. There is something to be said for a longer primary season in which the Democrats steal the spotlight, force a discussion of their issues and their dissent with the present Admin and their candidate gets tougher and more seasoned nationally by having to answer more tough questions against an vigorous opponent. In 2004, we had a 5-6 month layover from when Kerry effectively won the nomination and the convention. As the convention will be 3 weeks later in 2008, this could be even worse.

Ironically, if the DNC wants to lessen the power of Iowa and NH, then they should set a two week window between them and everyone else. This two week re-evaluation period is plenty of time for Dems to organize a 'stop the front-runner' campaign and have someone start to get some momentum. Bunching up the primaries makes NH & Iowa more powerful and decisive, not less.

If the schedule gets changed to 4-6 primaries or caucuses in January 2008, then the candidates with the most name-recognition and money will be able to hold a big big advantage over lesser known and possibly otherwise well-qualified candidates. I don't think the reformers have been thinking out the end results of their reforms very well at all.