A Better Way to Choose a President

The news coverage of the results of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary has been hysterical bordering on apoplectic. Watching the Iowa results on Thursday night one would have thought that the event was the national convention rather than the first contest in a small state with only a handful of uncommitted delegates chosen. The news media cover the early states because the participants spend so much time and money on them. The participants, in turn, focus on the early states because the calendar has been so compressed that they won’t have much more time for retail campaigning in the coming weeks. The calendar is compressed because so many states are tired of the attention lavished on the two early states and have moved their primaries up to avoid being shut out of the process thus making the situation worse, increasing the need for money to buy television ads and giving the news media even more power. The insanity has not gone unnoticed; on Friday were editorials by The New York Times, The National Journal and Ron Cass of Real Clear Politics that all basically said the same thing: the current system is absurd and it has to change.

Here’s an example of what a better system would look like:

1. Using 2012 as an example, primary contests would be held during 13 out of the 18 weeks, starting January 31 and ending May 29.

2. Not enough delegates would be chosen for any hopeful to clinch the nomination before California votes on April 17, about midway through the process.

3.Before California votes, each week’s contest would choose about 120 delegates from a single state, or a group of states. About 1000 would be needed for the nomination.

4. After April 17, the contests would award more delegates in groups of states, since the positions of the hopefuls would be better known by then.

5. Where possible, diversity in each contest would be maximized. Liberal states would be paired with conservative states; urban areas would be mixed with rural areas.

6. The contests would move around so that each region of the country would award some delegates before April 17.

7. The early contests would be held in geographically small areas, where practical, so that hopefuls without a lot of money wouldn’t need a lot of airtime or air travel to compete.

8. There would be a week off after the first two contests to allow the campaigns to make adjustments. There would also be a week off, both before and after California votes.

9. In subsequent years, groups of states could trade off dates, so that the same states did not vote early in every election.

The schedule would be as follows:

January 31: WV, MD,VA,DC,DE
February 14: IL,IN
February 28: FL
March 6: TX
March 20: MA,CT,RI,VT,NH,ME
March 27: NV,UT,CO,AZ,NM
April 3: OH,MI
April 17: CA
May 1: PA,NY,NJ
May 8: NC,SC,GA,TN,KY,MS,LA,AR,AL
May 15: OR,WA,ID,AK,MT,WY,HI
May 22: MO,IA,MN,WI
May 29: OK,KS,NE,SD,ND

Starting in the mid-atlantic border states makes life easier on the hopefuls since most of them own homes in the Washington DC area, but that’s not why these four states and one district were chosen to go first. Nowhere else in the country is there so much diversity in such a small area. Virginia is a very conservative state; Maryland, Delaware and DC are very liberal and West Virginia is a classic swing state. The region has rural areas, big cities, wealthy suburbs, mountains, a bay and an ocean shore. One can drive from Martinsburg WV to Dover DE in about five hours; from Baltimore to Richmond in about three and-a-half (depending on traffic). The area includes socialists in Takoma Park and evangelical Christians in Lynchburg. It would be difficult for any one hopeful to finish first in all five primaries in either party, but that’s the whole idea. A little-known hopeful with no money could finish first in Delaware, or West Virginia or DC with intense door-to-door retail campaigning. The campaigns would have a week off to adjust.

From there the process would move to Illinois and Indiana, the longest common border in the country between a state that hasn’t voted Republican in twenty years and a state that hasn’t voted Democrat in living memory. Illinois has the country’s third largest city and vast stretches of farmland. Indiana has the country’s 12th largest city and lots of small towns. A hopeful could speak at a luncheon in Indianapolis and drive to a dinner engagement in Chicago. Just three TV markets would cover the majority of voters. A message that wins votes in Chicago may turn off voters in Indianapolis. It would be difficult to win both states, but anyone who did so would demonstrate a strong candidacy. The campaigns would have a week off to adjust.

Next is Florida, a single state, but a very diverse one. Florida has rural southerners but it also has retirees from New York. It has a large Latino population and both rural and inner city blacks. It stretches across two time zones yet one can drive from Miami to the Georgia border in a day.

The campaign would then move straight to Texas. The move west is important to introduce western issues like land use and water rights. Texas has huge expanses of open land but it also has six of the country’s fifty largest cities. Money for air travel would be important if one wanted to campaign statewide, but one could stay within the Houston-Dallas-Austin triangle and still reach a majority of the voters.

The process allows two weeks for some retail campaigning in New England, where the voters of New Hampshire would finally get their chance to meet the candidates. From there it’s immediately back out west and then to the Great Lakes.

By Easter on April 8, 85% of the delegates needed to win the nomination would have been chosen but nobody could clinch without first facing California. By itself, California is the world’s seventh largest economy. It has eight of the country’s fifty largest cities. It has 55 electoral votes and about 250 delegates, yet in the past nine elections it has been virtually ignored as the nominees have always been picked before California voted. It is wrong that California be ignored while small states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina control so much of the process. That alone is reason enough to implement this plan. In most years the nominee won’t officially be chosen in the California primary, but a likely winner will probably have emerged. 110% of the delegates necessary to win will have been awarded at this point.

After a week to retool and reconsider, the two or three remaining hopefuls from each party would move on to New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, home to two of the country’s five largest cities. With 300 delegates at stake, these three primaries would likely choose a candidate in most years. If not, there would be 300 more delegates available the next week in the South, and 100 more in the Northwest after that. With two more regions left, there would be little chance of a brokered convention and at least 70% of the country would have had a chance to cast a ballot before the candidate was chosen.

Americans are a fair minded people and in alternating elections groups of states could trade off dates. Every year the majority of voters would get a chance to cast a meaningful ballot and no state would have the disproportionate influence that Iowa and New Hampshire do now. Having had a role in choosing the candidate, more Americans would feel a sense of participation and would be better informed for the general election. Better candidates would be chosen for each party and there would be less voter’s remorse - no more choosing a candidate in March and having until September to regret it.

It would take an extraordinary amount of resolve on the part of the president, the most senior member of the opposition and the chairmen of both major parties to make this happen in time for 2012, but reform is overdue. The current system is awful and it should never again be used.

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