…the parties, while trying not to lose their “bases” (wings, not necessarily extreme as is oft the misstatement about the GOP), continue to try to reach over to the other side (or pretend, in Hillary’s case) because that’s where most of the voters are.

That’s one of the more partisan posts I’ve seen from you and anyone who isn’t a GOP partisan can see right through your BS. BOTH sides have a chunk of their base at the extreme ends. If you can’t admit that, I feel sorry for you.

Giuliani is a moderate Republican. Your own words make it clear the GOP doesn’t think it needs the moderates for 2008… so be it. Obviously the GOP hasn’t learned a lesson and needs to loose a few more elections.

In the news today (other), G.O.P. front runner Rudy Giuliani is taking quite a bit of heat from social conservatives and the Pope on his pro-choice political stance. Giuliani who has repeatedly said that while he personally abhors abortion, he does believ

It’s compressed and flawed, but the parties, while trying not to lose their “bases” (wings, not necessarily extreme as is oft the misstatement about the GOP), continue to try to reach over to the other side (or pretend, in Hillary’s case) because that’s where most of the voters are.

“Independents” don’t matter as much as swing voters, who aren’t beholden to either party exclusively and may even vote for the other side to punish the side they ordinary favor.

The nomination process’s elections are now more compressed than they used to be, but the entire process now is longer than ever. When were the first declarations and when were the first “exploratory committees” formed?

As to the system of primary elections, reform is overdue; the practice of more states shifting their primaries earlier makes perfect sense given that no state wants to have little or no influence in the selection process. What’s needed is a reasonable sequence of election dates and assignment of various states to these various dates so that smaller states are front-loaded (not made irrelevent by early elections in all the mega-states), but the mega-states still can affect the outcome. Iowa and New Hampshire have no sacred “right” to be first, obviously; the timing of each state’s primary should vary in the different election years so that all states eventually have the ability to affect the selection process. A schedule of four or five primary dates two weeks apart would be suitable. (I don’t have the details with me here and now, but I worked out an example some time ago using a geometric progression so that each successive round of primaries involved more and more electoral votes.)

Liberals, largely the young who don’t want to call themselves Democrats or believe the Dems are not liberal enough

> in the past and from a
> segment of Democrats.

Phffft.

“Democrat Lite” = “President Clinton”