Democrats push New Hampshire primary to 3rd

The DNC has pushed the New Hampshire primary from second to third:

The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted 23-3 to push New Hampshire to third place in the 2008 Presidential nominating lineup. The vote recommended that the full DNC authorize an additional caucus between Iowa's leadoff caucus and the New Hampshire primary and an additional primary after New Hampshire's contest but before Feb. 5, 2008. [Union Leader]

As someone who grew up in Canada, the whole idea of sequential primaries strikes me as bizarre. It's bad enough that voters in a handful of states get disproportionate influence over the nomination process. It's even more perverse that the ordering of primaries necessarily has such a large effect on the outcome. Voters in the first primary make their choice without knowing how anyone else has voted, but voters in every subsequent primary make their choice in light of the outcome of all the previous primaries. Primaries should be designed to measure public sentiment about candidates, not people strategic guesses about who's still electable in light of the last primary.

At the very least, the ordering of primaries should be randomized. Better still, hold all the primaries on the same day and announce the results all at once.

Some people argue that sequential primaries are important because they measure a candidate's aptitude for retail politics--i.e., pressing the flesh, live, in a number of different locations. Be that as it may, an aptitude for retail politics is highly overrated at the presidential level. Presidential campaigns are anything but retail. Sure, all other things being equal, it's great if your candidate can make a good impression at town hall meetings in sparsely populated states. However, the idea that your nomination process should be structured in order to elevate a flair for retail politics over all other potential attributes seems quaint and wrong-headed in this day and age.

Comments

[Idealistic Pragmatist]

I didn't grow up in Canada, but I live there now, and I couldn't agree more.

[jhupp]

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

And that, in a nutshell, is why simultaneous primaries are next to impossible. The extraordinary cost of doing so would yield only a couple viable candidates before the process even begins, but it would also be likely to prematurely tap out the donor base. This also means more advertising, mudslinging, and the like during primaries, but less during general elections, which, if the party system is viable at all, is where the strongest contrasts ought to be seen.

[ballgame]

If you took everything "quaint" OR "wrong-headed" away from the U.S. electoral system, you'd basically have to build a new one from scratch. Which would be a great idea that's unlikely to happen anytime soon because of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[Alon Levy]

Jhupp, what you say holds very little water in light of the experience of countries that hold simultaneous primaries. I'm not Canadian but Israeli, but Israel's Labor Party's primaries - both the vote for party leader and the vote for the ordering of candidates on the list - tend to be relatively clean.

Ballgame, what you say is exactly true (and, I should add, holds to many other countries to varying degrees). Off the top of my head, the US needs to abolish the Electoral College, replace plurality vote with approval or Condorcet, abolish primaries since approval and Condorcet make them redundant, mandate nationwide proportional representation for the House, and, maybe, make Senators elected in districts covering roughly 2% of the population rather than states. In other words, large chunks of the Constitution have to be thrown out entirely.

[Damien]

I'm not jhupp but I'm guessing the $$$$$ is not that of holding the elections but of having national campaigns before the primaries. Our system allows ramp-up, and weeding out. Theoretically you can spend a bit of money in Iowa and New Hampshire, do well, then more money rolls in. Vs. having to raise tons of money up front, which might lock out lesser-known names. Canada and Israel are a lot smaller than the US... and even so they don't have national presidencies which matter. (Okay, Israel switched to some "elect the PM" system I don't know much about.)

[Damien]

But I'd agree with Alon's recs, especially approval or Condorcet voting. (IRV gets more noise but I suspect would be disappointing. Note Australia still has two big parties, AFAIK.)

If not proportional representation, at least copy Iowa's system where the legislature doesn't get to draw the district boundaries and there's some pressure for sane boundaries.

Or more radically, use sortition instead of elections: draw the legislature via random sampling. Elections could be used for recalls if enough people loathe the choice, but the replacement would still be random.

[Alon Levy]

Canada and Israel are a lot smaller than the US... and even so they don't have national presidencies which matter. (Okay, Israel switched to some "elect the PM" system I don't know much about.)

Actually, the PM in Parliamentary systems is usually more important than the President in Presidential ones. Presidential systems require the President to face off Congress, and in particular the United States' has one of the democratic world's weakest Presidents, whereas Parliamentary ones usually ensure executive domination.

By the way, Israel's direct election of a prime minister got revoked after two election cycles.

Canada may be less populous than the US, but its population is just as spread out; what makes it relatively easy for a candidate to become well-known in Israel is not size but the way the system is set up, in particular the relative rarity of important local politics.

Our system allows ramp-up, and weeding out. Theoretically you can spend a bit of money in Iowa and New Hampshire, do well, then more money rolls in. Vs. having to raise tons of money up front, which might lock out lesser-known names.

Howard Dean didn't seem to have a problem with raising enough money. Indeed he may well have won if the entire country voted simultaneously; Kerry's Iowa win was serendipitous (for him), and his other wins were direct results of his Iowa win.

[George Johnston]

They could make it regional primaries on the same day different months. That two or three states that rarely go Democratic in the general get to pick the Democratic nominee seems like a recipe for disaster.

[Alon Levy]

They could make it regional primaries on the same day different months. That two or three states that rarely go Democratic in the general get to pick the Democratic nominee seems like a recipe for disaster.

Uh, rarely? Bush Jr. won each once.

Either way, it's a violation of the principle of equal votes to have primaries on different days. The US seems to be alone among democracies in having staggered primaries, and despite some arrogant Iowans and New Hampshirers' claims that they're the candidate-vetters of the country, primary equality seems perfectly feasible.

[jhupp]

Yeah, Damien gets my point well. Sorry I wasn't clearer. Staggered primaries allow money to roll in over time. Given the nature of our electoral system, that's essential. It's essential both to upstarts in primaries and to a good general election. The way the money works now, a simultaneous primary would favor the incumbent dramatically in the general election.

Alon, your Dean point doesn't prove anything. He was a favorite of the netroots folks, but he was also one of the couple front runners entering Iowa. It was an upstart-style campaign, but once primary season started, he was no longer an upstart. He was the man. Remember that if the primaries had been simultaneous rolling, John Edwards would have been a no-show in many states. He and Kerry had good finishes in Iowa, which is the thing that made them the two front runners.

All of this is not to say the current system is a good one; it is ridiculous to have Iowa and/or New Hampshire choose the Democratic nominee. But without overhauling the whole system, I don't see a functional way to line up the primaries on one day.

I will say the regional primary system is intriguing, and if nothing else, there should be more time between primaries if they'll be staggered at all. It allows the narrative to settle down a bit.

As we are using Canada and Israel as counter-examples, can someone explain the funding differences? That's really the crux of my argument, I guess. A publicly financed system would be different, but we have to be careful not to conflate primary and general elections. What's the primary like in Israel and Canada? I mean, what is the vote for party leader really like, aside from simultaneous? Those two questions (funding and primary structures) are extremely important if we're going to draw comparisons.

[Alon Levy]

I mean, what is the vote for party leader really like, aside from simultaneous?

In general, the Israeli primary is less about the party leader and more about the party list.

The party leader is typically (by which I mean, "in the Labor and Likud parties") voted for by all card-carrying party members; candidates tend to be well-known figures in the party, such as the sitting Prime Minister, a former Prime Minister, an official opposition leader, or a high-ranking minister. If the 2004 Democratic primary were Israeli style, the candidates would've been Gore, Lieberman, Hillary Clinton, and maybe Kerry. When Peretz won the Labor primary, it was a huge upset victory, and if I'm not mistaken one of the first times a relatively inexperienced politician won.

The party list primary is bloodier, with each candidate's supporters doing their best to trash all other candidates. In the Likud, where only a few thousand core members can vote for the list, it reaches bribery levels. Generally the party leader has already been chosen so he's guaranteed to be in first place, and sometimes his main opponent is guaranteed second place.

In general, the entire process is a lot quicker than in the US. The US has year-long election campaigns; in Israel, where sometimes there's barely a year between elections, the entire campaign, primary plus general, typically lasts three to four months.

[DonBoy]

Just to be contrarian: imagine a candidate who comes across well in a controlled media enviroment, on TV or in front of large crowds...but when he starts talking to individuals, they all get the creeps. Don't we want to weed out people like that? And if we never force the candidates to go (almost) door-to-door, aren't we giving up a tool that can screen those people out?

[Alon Levy]

DonBoy, experienced Presidential candidates have already passed this weedout stage in earlier election cycles. A candidate who's now Governor of a midsize state and was State Senator beforehand had plenty of opportunity to talk to individual citizens and market his politics to them.

[Damien]

Alon: I know PMs are way more powerful than presidents, but they're not elected on a national basis. I'd said "don't have national presidencies which matter" -- parliamentary systems often have a president elected nationwide, but he doesn't have much power (France being an exception). The PM has power but is just a person from one district, or at the head of a party list.

So AFAIK, Canada is spread out, but *no one* has to campaign across that distance; the important electoral politics is MPs within districts (ridings). In Israel the parties compete as blocs, among 6 million people in a tiny area. No analog to a single person having to get roughly half the votes of the US.

[Steven desJardins]

The DNC pushed the New Hampshire primary from second, not from first--it already came after Iowa.

[Alon Levy]

The PM has power but is just a person from one district, or at the head of a party list.

PMs often do campaign nationally, even if they're just the heads of party lists or MPs. In Israel the largest parties' leaders urge you to vote for them - not the parties, but them. In Britain, national campaigns are important, and people's votes usually boil down to who is slated to become PM; the country's party system is strong enough to enforce nearly complete ideological homogeneity, and to my knowledge the PM candidate's personality generally plays a bigger role in a constituency than the MP candidate's.

[mudkitty]

Agree with LB on this one.

[Grumpy Physicist]

Unlike the situation in the general election, for the primaries, the parties get to set the rules for representation, scheduling, etc.

How about this: each state gets some "max" number of delegates (roughly) proportional to population, and an election schedule slot set up so that "more delegates" = "later" and "fewer delegates" = "earlier". The number of delegates they get can't go above the max, but can be reduced.

If states want to move their election earlier, that's fine. But they give up delegates as a result. So if New York wants to have a primary before New Hampshire, they can. But they'll wind up with fewer delegates than New Hampshire gets.

The idea is to keep the process competitive all the way through; we shouldn't have a situation where the primaries in "medium size" states (florida, ohio, pennsylvania, michigan, etc) are irrelevant because NY and CA have already weighed in.

[Alon Levy]

The idea is to keep the process competitive all the way through; we shouldn't have a situation where the primaries in "medium size" states (florida, ohio, pennsylvania, michigan, etc) are irrelevant because NY and CA have already weighed in.

As opposed to one when the primaries are irrelevant because IA and NH have weighed in? When you allow staggered primaries, you ensure that the first few states set the trend for the rest of the country, effectively disenfranchising 48 states or so.