Toward a National Primary?

UPDATE: Great minds think alike? Well, I won't call my mind great, but Peter Brown and I both came to the same conclusion from the news that several large states are considering moving their primaries to February. His article is titled "A de facto National Primary," and I thought I should mention it to avoid plaigiarism charges. My original post is below.


For years, Iowa and New Hampshire have served as the kickoff events of the Presidential election cycle. Both states have done everything in their power to keep it that way, however absurd the notion may seem to those of us who think that Iowa and New Hampshire aren't particularly representative of the rest of the country, and therefore get significantly more importance in the process than they deserve. Meanwhile, many big money states such as California and Florida have sat on the sidelines (California, with it's June primary, moreso than Florida). That may be changing.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature are in agreement that the state should play a bigger role in selecting Presidential candidates, and so are targeting a February primary date. In a move sure to give campaign manager's headaches, several other states, including Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Missouri are contemplating similar moves.

All of this leads me to wonder one thing: Are we destined for a national primary day, or something close to it, not so much because the parties decide that it's a good idea, but because the selfish (and I'm not using that word pejoratively) interests of each State will cause them to move up their primaries? The parties can try to preven this, but I suspect that the days of May and June primaries, at the least, will soon be over. I leave it as an open question who these moves would help - although the CW is that it would be Clinton and McCain, the two best financed and most established candidates in the race. It will be interesting to watch this develop over the next few months as the candidates spin their wheels trying to find traction nearly two years before the election.