The Presidential Primary shenanigans
have started. Again.
Florida has decided they want to push
the selection process up in an effort to become the deciding factor
in the GOP primary process. Never mind that front loading the
primaries hasn't worked out so well for either party. Never mind that
campaigns in larger states tend to be totally media driven and that
average voter rarely has a chance to meet the candidates. Never mind
that the best candidate won't necessarily be the one who's selected.
How many times have we seen states jump
the gun, pushing the start of the primary season up by months? As it
stands, both Iowa and New Hampshire will have to put their respective
caucuses and primaries up to early January rather than February. And
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has stated he'll move
the New Hampshire Primaries up to December if he has to in order to
stay within New Hampshire election law.
Both the DNC and RNC have stated they
won't seat all of the convention delegates from any state that holds
their primaries ahead of the schedules set by both parties. That
isn't good enough. They shouldn't seat any of them, period. After
states start losing their delegates because of their decision to go
against their party leadership in this regard, they'll stop all of
this nonsense.
The original schedules from decades ago
worked quite well and allowed candidates to stretch out their
campaigns (and their campaign funds) between March and June. By
front-loading the primaries only candidates with a large campaign war
chest wile be able to afford to run campaigns in all of the states in
such a short period of time (the three months running from January
through March). The so-called Super-Primaries, those where a
multitude of states run their primaries on the same date, have had
the same effect, causing candidates to spread themselves thin because
they have campaign in all of those states at the same time. That
means less well-funded candidates won't be able to compete
effectively against those with the money to burn.
Another negative side effect: with the
presumptive candidate all but nominated by April the long campaign to
November begins and by the time the election actually takes place
just about everyone is sick and tired of it all. The seemingly
'perpetual campaign' gets old real fast. It wouldn't surprise me if a
number of voters are so turned off by the time election day arrives
they don't bother to vote because they're so sick of the unending
media blitzes.