Since we recently crossed the border that separates humanity from the following presidential election by a complete seven hundred days and nights, immediately is the age for us all to be concerned about the inscrutable bureaucratic legerdemain upon which the entire presidential primary system is built. How are the Democrats doing, ridding this Earth of the scourge of superdelegates, for instance? Not well, thanks for asking! However today, it’s age to worry about what Fresh Hampshire and Iowa will do if they feel that their specialness is also encroached-upon by other states making their own claims of specialness.
See, extended before any of us were born, the village elders who made this nation gathered encircling their cauldrons filled with turkey entrails and questioned the fantastic Sky God what they could do to win His favor, and ensure a bounteous crop yield come harvest age. And, lo, the turkey-bone goulash was sluiced atop the naked, heaving bodies of the village’s virgins, and the augurs studied the arrangement of gristle and viscera and declared that they had received a message, that glance at, “Send your leaders en masse to the least hospitable places in the nation every two years, to flip pancakes and attend town hall meetings in the bitter winter cold.”
And that’s how I imagine it came to pass that everyone chose it would be best that the primary season commence in Iowa and Fresh Hampshire in the dead of winter.
Immediately, I have nothing against this, per se, as this arrangement provides an opportunity to finally punish the nation’s political reporters for their various sins. Over age, however, voters in the Iowa caucus and the Fresh Hampshire primary have wielded an enormous influence over the larger race for the presidential nominations, with the winners of each anointed with “momentum,” and thus a more favorable spate of coverage. (Some fifth place winners are accorded “Joementum,” which matters nary a whit to anyone.) Other states bristle at this, since by the age the race for the nomination wends its path encircling to their voters, the game is basically over.
And so, there’s always pressure to constitute the primary system more equitable. And some states capture it upon themselves to straight up muscle in on the turf claimed by Iowa and Fresh Hampshire. That makes a crazy situation where everyone is threatening to go up their primaries to earlier and earlier dates. And that’s where we find ourselves today, per Michael Shear in The Fresh York Times:
Officials in both Iowa and Fresh Hampshire are talking once again about moving their contests earlier in 2012 as a path of ensuring that they will remain the first caucus or primary of the following presidential campaign.
As reported by the veteran political reporter John Distaso on Christmas Eve, Fresh Hampshire’s secretary of state, Bill Gardner, has warned that the Republican primary may have to be went up since the proposed Feb. 14 date would land only four days before Nevada’s Feb. 18 caucus — a violation of Fresh Hampshire laws that require the primary to capture place a week before a “alike election” is held elsewhere. (Except Iowa, of direction.)
If Fresh Hampshire moves, that could energy Iowa — which has alike rules about putting some distance before another state’s voting — into January. That would break a gentleman’s agreement between the two parties to try to keep the official commence of the 2012 voting in February, where it was for decades — before that, voting didn’t commence in Iowa and Fresh Hampshire until March.
I mean, wow. Nevada could violate the Fresh Hampshire state code that forbids that a primary occur within a week of the Granite State’s? For Pete’s sake, human beings!
Shear says that the whole system really spoils the holiday season for reporters, which, as I said before, is something I do not attention about very much. He also asserts that, “It’s also not seen as a positive development among voters, who regularly complain that the campaign stretches on for also extended.” Of direction, in 2004, John Kerry secured the nomination by March 11. And Al Gore secured his nomination on March 9, 2000. McCain dropped outside of the GOP primary contest against George W. Bush on March 7, 2000. So, in terms of “regular complaints,” I reckon Shear is referring to that one age in 2008 when the campaign really did stretch on also extended.
Anyway, as Wonkette’s Jack Stuef warns, everyone should basically be prepared to ballot in presidential primaries by following week at the latest.
RELATED:
States Jockey, Again, to Ballot First in 2012 [The Caucus @ Fresh York Times]
States All Looking To Have First Primaries of 2012 Election, Probably Following Week [Wonkette]
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