Comments on: No Way to Pick a President

By: ‘Inspiration’ | The Moderate Voice

‘Inspiration’ | The Moderate Voice — Thu, 10 May 2007 09:19:10 +0000

[...] May 6, The Moderate Voice, Jeremy Dibbell: “No Way to Pick a President”. [...]

By: Jim Satterfield

Jim Satterfield — Tue, 08 May 2007 04:32:01 +0000

But it just goes to show how conservative everyone has become. It’s Federalism at its finest. The hell with the country, I want my state to look good.

By: Kevin H

Kevin H — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:08:06 +0000

My idea to solve this: Pick a 4-month spread, with 50 fairly evenly spaced days. Then maybe 1 year before the election, you randomly assign each state to a slot. It means that some years, maybe the south would be more important, some years the north, but in the long run that should average out, and you don’t have the crowding which some believe hurts the candidates ability to have face time with the people across the nation.

Not that the idea is practical from a political will standpoint right now, but we still use an electoral college, so go figure.

By: pacatrue

pacatrue — Mon, 07 May 2007 19:58:50 +0000

Does anyone know if there have been studies of likely votes before and after the early primaries? I’m wondering if you asked the voters in a state that does its primary late who they would vote for before Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and then ask them after Super Tuesday, does it change radically? My guess is yes. If so, then why precisely? Is it because they want to show solidarity with the frontrunners of their party? (You don’t want the party still fighting late in the election when you are all pretending that whoever is winning is clearly the only decent choice for the country….) Did they learn something about the candidates? Does everyone just accept that they have no say once the first few states go, and so they don’t even bother anymore? I don’t know. I’m sure someone here does.

By: hanginjohnny

hanginjohnny — Mon, 07 May 2007 18:39:19 +0000

It’s a two out of three ring circus…

By: christine

christine — Mon, 07 May 2007 13:25:45 +0000

Iowa and New Hampshire are not the only ones to have a say as to who the canidates will be. IIRC, there are only 8 votes for the canidates at the party convention between the two states. Just about any other state can out vote the first two. Yes, the first two can weed a few out, but IMHO, don’t decide who the candiate will be. IIRC, Iowa choose Dean and he didn’t get the nomination.

I do agree that the dates for caucus and primaries are outragous to say the least. Iowa is in constant campaign mode now, there were people campaigning for Pres in the ‘06 elections here. I think the biggest thing is that those in the smaller populated states fear that their concerns will be shoved off the table in favor of the big cities, to the detriment of the nation as a whole.

By: Primaries and all that « Michael P.F. van der GaliÃ«n

Primaries and all that « Michael P.F. van der GaliÃ«n — Mon, 07 May 2007 10:58:52 +0000

[...] 7th, 2007 by mvdg An interesting post at The Moderate Voice by Jeremy Dibbell. Sixteen states have already moved their primaries up to 5 February, including delegate-rich New [...]

By: superdestroyer

superdestroyer — Mon, 07 May 2007 09:32:30 +0000

But the question is why should the residents of New Hampshire and Iowa be the only ones who have a say in who is nominated for President. Why shouldn’t more people get a chance to meet any of the candidates instead of the same few political junkies in New Hampshire getting to meet all of them?

The real question is the effect of having the nomination decided by Feb 10 but the convention not occuring until six months later. That is a huge lag time and one of the reasons that the candidates have to give up federal funding.