Why haven't we changed the primary practices?

Question

Why do we still use Iowa and New Hampshire, two states with very little diversity both ethnically and politically? These two little states are put in charge with essentially choosing who become the nominees for president. This doesn't work for anybody. The Republicans will get killed by Iowa where the bible-thumping, war-mongering conservatives will pick a candidate who has NO CHANCE at winning in November. But most of all the voters lose, since so many states have NO SAY in who becomes the party nominee.

Can anybody explain this?

Okay, out come the neo-cons. The fact is that the winner of one of these primaries becomes the nominee for the party over the past several election seasons. And how can you say the Howard Dean proves me wrong??? He didn't even win!!! That's my point. If Dean had been in a national primary or in another state he might have won. He might have been the candidate Democrats wanted. But he didn't win these two states so his campaign was dead.

Nobody sees fault in the process?

Answer 1

States can have their primaries any time they want. Remember Howard Dean. He was the darling of the Dems, the front runner, got the headlines. He did not win any primaries. Your assessment is not correct.

Answer 2

Actually in 1992, Clinton did not win in either Iowa or New Hampshire. Harkin won Iowa and Tsongas won New Hampshire.

The DNC has tried to reduce the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire by allowing two other states to hold early contests -- Nevada and South Carolina. Unfortunately everyone else wants to crowd in immediately afterward, and Florida has officially jumped into January despite rules in both parties prohibiting any state but these four to hold contests in January.

My own personal solution would be to allow five small states at random to go first and then to randomly split the remaining 45 states into 5 groups of nine with each group to have staggered periods for holding their contests. This would allow some early screening of candidates by the smaller states (which does have value in reducing the influence of money in the process) and would give time for everyone to digest the first results and compare the remaining candidates.

The big problem is that the only way to impose discipline on the states (which otherwise are free to pick and choose dates) is through Congress which will not get involved because too many in Congress see themselves as future Presidential candidates and do not want to tick off voters in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Answer 3

I say, let's have a national primary day. We have a national election day already so why not?

Answer 4

Uh, not really, You seem to have the basic misunderstanding of the process that the rest of us have.