I didn’t see this posted elsewhere, but figured we might as well start a general thread for the election.
Looks like the Democrats are looking to move away from Iowa as their first primary, which makes sense because Iowa doesn’t really provide a good representative demographic slice of the party, and there’s no reason for it to hold that kind of importance.
Maybe not Michigan?
I don’t know the history on this, but why can’t we do every primary on the same night?
The general theory is that a longer primary process can help emergent, initially small time candidates break out by outperforming expectations early on and translating high placements in small early states into the kind of fundraising they need to succeed in later, larger ones, as they work to get their message and ideas out in front of more people as the media spotlight turns to them.
On the other hand, the long primary process means that you need to accrue a ton of money, either at the very start by bent of being independently wealthy or a major party frontrunner, or later on by the above technique, in order to have any hope at all long term.
If all the primaries were at the same time we wouldn’t have gotten Obama or Biden.
Obama winning in Iowa gave him momentum in later primaries as Southern Blacks saw he could potentially get elected in the Midwest. Before that he was viewed by many as too risky.
Biden didn’t have much of a shot until everyone saw the lay of the land and the smaller candidates got out of the way.
All at once strongly favors a plurality vote. It enables even more possible Trump-like candidates that can “win” a large field with nothing resembling a majority. Whereas if there are early rounds people can vote for a diverse field and also see who doesn’t have a hope in hell. Those people dropping out means they can go for their next choice, but it also allows for an Obama to come out of the sun and shake things up.
To do them all at once you’d have to have some sort of ranked choice with every single candidate to not run into the plurality issue and that could get weird fast.
Edit: All that said, Iowa is basically useless as a first now. It used to be a very purple state, but now it’s dark red and what Iowa voters care about is irrelevant. Michigan is a better choice and it’s still a battleground state. But Iowa also has a rule where no matter what they go first iirc unless they changed it. If you make it the Tuesday before Iowa, Iowa automatically changes it to Monday.
Personally I’d love to not be bombarded with ads and nonsense every 4 years.
I’d have gone with New Hampshite , Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.
Five swing states, each geographically balanced and fairer.
I’d have all of them in a very brief timetable, like 2 weeks or so. Force candidates to prove they can run at least regionally if not nationally
South Carolina is just going to tilt things in favor a constituency that tends to support the status quo.
@ShivaX Dems would likely just pass a rule that if Iowa did that, their delegate slate would be cut in half.
That’s the usual penalty for running the primary too early.
Well, last I knew it was like Iowa law or something stupid.
But it’s also “not a primary it’s a caucus” which is nonsense and translates into “it’s a shitty, endless process that no sane person wants to be part of or deal with”.
Actually I found it:
Per the Code of Iowa, the state central committees of the parties set the date of the caucus. By law, caucus must be held “at least eight days earlier than the scheduled date for any meeting, caucus, or primary which constitutes the first determining stage of the presidential nominating process in any other state, territory, or any other group which has the authority to select delegates in the presidential nomination.” Caucus must be scheduled no later than the fourth Monday in February.
It’s literally a law.
This is why Iowa would do it, but the Democratic party is not bound to accept all of Iowa’s electors, or even any, if they defy their rules.
I’m not sure “we instruct you to break the law and failure to do so will be punished” would fly that well.
Don’t get me wrong, I want you to be right because I hate it so much.
In an ideal world, there is a middle ground between our current insane primary system and an “all at once” system which would have its own set of drawbacks. I’d like to see the primaries packed into a shorter season, with multiple primaries per week for something like 10 weeks, with the smaller states frontloaded and the larger states backloaded.
The problem with a lot of the possible reforms is that in many states, for the Dems to change their primary they would need GOP legislatures to go along with it and the GOP has their own agenda, which can include screwing the Dems on general principles.
But the current system sucks and needs a big overhaul. That doesn’t mean we need to go to a one size fits all deal.
I think the real solution to this is rank choice voting though. That eliminates Trump garbage candidate who just have a solid plurality of crazies.
It lets you vote for who you want, without having to vote defensively.
The Dem party at least once this century has punished a state for holding their election too early by denying their slate of delegates.
Michigan in 2008.
Maybe, but if you’re talking about 12 candidates or the like, that’s gonna get messy and confusing for people.
Also most states are never doing it anyway because gestures vaguely and wildly
I mean, while the calculation process might be confusing, that’s kind of immaterial, because the actual process for the voter is not complex or hard to understand at all.
You rank the candidates from best to worst. That’s it. And then it works.
Since people think DeSantis is The Man, it’s useful to keep track of his failures.
Florida is going to repeal that law they passed to take away Disney’s self-government authority, now that they realize what it will cost them.
No one is going to see this as a DeSantis failure. That’s the advantage of performative gestures; they succeed when performed. Actual policy conseqy are irrelevant for his audience
Now if Trump started calling him “Ronda” (it’s just hanging there) that would hurt DeSantis.
BTW, guess who’ll announce his plans to run for re-election soon?
Bernie Sanders? Mitt Romney?
:)
I’m keepin’ it on topic.
That son-of-a-bitch Clinton has found a loophole! ONE MORE TERM!