This year, 29 primaries were held in the six weeks starting with Iowa on Jan 19 and ending on Super Tuesday on March 2nd.
The irony is that Democrats (McGovern-Fraser commission) caused Republicans to adopt the more open and participatory process of nomination, back in the early 1970s.
But Republicans took the lead on front-loading primaries, which helps establishment candidates (Bush and Kerry vs "people" candidates like McCain and Edwards). Then the Democrats claim they have to front-load their primaries in order to "compete" with Republicans "getting all the attention".
Viola! Republicans have undone McGovern-Fraser with the help of Democrats!
From 20th Jan 2002, link [emphasis added]:
The changes were approved after Michigan's chairman, Mark Brewer, asked the panel to "end the unfair monopoly Iowa and New Hampshire have" on the presidential selection process. "We need to have a system where every state has a chance to go first." The Michigan complaint had no support on the rules panel.
The full DNC is expected to approve the plan easily on Saturday, after hearing a complaint from Michigan Sen. Carl Levin about the head start given to Iowa and New Hampshire.
"I think Iowa and New Hampshire play a very important role in the process," said Democratic national chairman Terry McAuliffe. "I don't like that they're not diverse, but we can accomplish that by having South Carolina and Michigan among the states that move up to match Republican primaries."
... In the 2000 presidential campaign, state Democratic parties had to wait for a month after New Hampshire's primary while Republicans held highly publicized presidential contests in states such as South Carolina, Michigan and Arizona.
Democrats in several states complained that the attention paid to the GOP campaign during that month hurt state Democratic parties.
"We have to allow our state parties to be competitive," said Carol Khare, co-chair of the rules panel."
The DNC rule changes were prompted by a threat from Michigan, whose firehouse primary rules are so byzantine that candidates ignored MI this year. It is accepted that success in MI is more about organization than candidate.
There is one line of defense left in the nominating process - that is IA and NH. Opportunistic spinning about diversity not withstanding. If we really care about diversity, let's move some diverse people to IA and NH. Seriously. Their geographical advantages outweigh their demographic disadvantages. We can move people more easily than we can change geography. The front-loading has to be reversed and the IA/NH monopoly has to be maintained to protect retail candidates like McCain and Edwards.
Otherwise, we may as well scrap both primaries and conventions and hand the nomination responsibility directly to the media.
In April 2003, Michigan reached a deal with the DNC, link
But key Michigan Democrats, led by U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and Debbie Dingell, had threatened to break DNC rules and encroach on New Hampshire's primary date.
The proposed compromise, adopted by the Michigan AFL-CIO Tuesday, would preserve the primacy of Iowa and New Hampshire for 2004, but aims to end that status by 2008.
"Labor wants to see permanent change in the primary calendar in a way that keeps everyone from killing each other," Debbie Dingell said.
Under the compromise, the DNC would establish a commission to re-examine Iowa and New Hampshire's place on the primary calendar and address the issue during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.
"We go through this every four years," said Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party. "New Hampshire and Iowa have always had to talk about the importance of grassroots campaigning and the importance of the process we have now."
2004 will go down in history, all right.
Posted by dotpeople at March 13, 2004 10:40 AM