10/13/2011

Primary Schedule Shoving Match Getting Worse


The shoving match between states in regards to the upcoming presidential primaries and caucuses is heating up, with New Hampshire threatening to move their primary to early or mid December if Nevada goes forward with their plans to move their caucuses to early January. That is certainly going to screw up campaign schedules and make the campaign season far too long. It's too darned long now, and the bigger states like Florida figure they should be the ones to set the tone despite the fact they'll kill off any of the retail campaigning so prevalent in smaller states that helps less well known candidates gain some traction. Should Florida succeed, the only viable candidates will be those with huge bank accounts at the beginning of each campaign season. Better, but less well funded candidates will be locked out because campaigning in states like Florida at the beginning of primary season requires more money than most candidates will have available to them that early in the campaign. Voters already complain that political contributions corrupt the process as it is now. What will they be saying when only the well funded will be able to campaign at all?

This does not bode well for the election process.