Friday, October 12, 2007

Bad ideas in New Hampshire

by shamanic

It does not help our politics or our political system to vote in primaries in 2007 for a nominee who won't even be official until something like nine or ten months later. And the next president won't be elected for nearly a year. If anything, primaries should be pushed closer to the nominating conventions, and the knuckleheads in state parties should get a grip. Being "first in the nation" is meaningless if we tamp down our elections process so voters don't get to make good decisions.

Yes, we're all tired of Bush and we're all eager to move on, but there's that little wrinkle of the United States Constitution that mandates that we're stuck with him until January 20, 2009. Even so, it's still the finest political charter in the world, so let's quit undermining its intentions and start holding primaries in March and wrap them up in June or July. Or even better, let's move to a four- or five-part nomination process with rotating "first in the nation" status by region.

But this crap about primaries being pushed forward into the year before is as silly as it is crazy. Take the power away from these short sighted state committees and let's get our elections system back on track.

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