Time to put the foot down on the d@mn presidential primary schedule

[badger]

Florida moved to Jan 31 officially today.

Link

A New Hampshire official said that might push them to have their first-in-nation primary during the winter holiday season. And Iowa, by its own stupid state law, has its caucus 8 days before NH's primary.

F***. F***. F***. Does ANYbody want an entire YEAR of political crap?!

It is time to put the foot down, election people. It's a 2012 election, so every voting aspect of it MUST be in the year 2012. I do NOT want politics in the middle of my Christmas and I sincerely doubt anyone else wants that, either.

Make rules, make laws, do whatever it takes to stop the madness.

[Soonerjeepman]

how 'bout not even having elections...as some have suggested....

j/k....but I agree...everything in the yr of the election...

[yermom]

how about not whining about dates? who says Iowa gets to be first?

who cares?

well, other than Florida, apparently...

[SouthCarolinaSooner]

South Carolina moved to Jan 21, surprised it wasn't moved to Dec 20th instead so we can try to relive our glory days somehow.

[Sooner5030]

sick of IOWA always getting the early primary and others trying to move theirs up.......solution is to have a national primary. Although I haven't thought of every 2nd and 3rd order effect of a national primary.

[badger]

It isn't just Iowa, but New Hampshire also. These dinky states are desperate to let their constituents screaming be heard like the whining babies they become whenever another state tries to also have their own voice heard.

Nevada nearly caused those New Hampshire brats to move their primary up to December, but Nevada was apparently offered huge concessions to move back to February.

Link

I personally like Oklahoma participating in Super Tuesday. We aren't first, but we're part of something larger than the minuscule number of delegates those single, early primaries/caucuses yield.

[King Barry's Back]

I have no idea how NH and Iowa ended up with this "first in the nation" tradition, but it is frankly un-American to let two states have such protected status on a permanent basis.

I'd like to see something along the lines of regional primaries, with say NE states voting over two weeks, SE states voting over two or three weeks, Midwest over two or three weeks, and the West likewise voting together. And the voting order of regions could be scrambled every four years, so no region owns first place rights. Or some variation of that.

This would still allow candidates to retail politic at the local level within the various regions, and would allow small states like OK to gain some standing by voting as part of a much larger region.


Of course, Iowa and NW are already losing their relevance as deciders of the national nominees, so their power is being undermined whether the system is reformed or not.

[MR2-Sooner86]

I think it's pretty ****ing stupid.

[soonercruiser]

The idea that some priviledged state gets to go first and say they control the destiny of the primaries must end!
It's time for a state lottery on primary dates.
Or, a rotating schedule of dates so that all states get a chance (if they want) to be first, eventually.

[Serge Ibaka]

The entire campaign process is ridiculous--it's too long; it eats up money, and it distracts from actual political progress. It makes things more crooked. Incumbents are distracted from their work because their opposition is campaigning against them years in advance.

Can't we do something to lawfully shorten the campaign season? I think we'd make better and more well-informed decisions anyway if everybody threw their hat in the ring (along with organized proposals and position statements), and the public had just a few months to digest it all and make a decision.

Plus, all of the gratuitous time that the media spends drowned in the drama of campaign-season would be directed as real things that matter.

Maybe I just don't know enough. Why can't we do this?

[badger]

Oh and I'm totally gonna do presidential primary/caucus stuff on vBookie when that time comes. I have already promised the real modadors to keep all political talk here though.