One day nationally is a horrible answer. It prevents lesser known candidates from competing at all. It puts the power back in the hands of large donors – a horrible system that we have only in the last few cycles broken free from. If we had national primaries, we never would have had Carter, Clinton, or Obama; and even beyond that, Edwards would have walked away with the nomination in 2004 and Sanders would never have even put up a fight in 2016. Even when these alternate candidates don’t win, they move the eventual nominee’s policies and the party’s platform just by being somewhat competitive.
Honestly, going back to smoke-filled rooms where the party bosses chose candidates would be a better option than a national primary. I swear to god no one on this site even thinks about second and third-order effects in passing.
I would be in favor of a constantly rotating schedule of when states go in the cycle each presidential election that goes through all the states in a predictable order defined well in advance. I don’t think it’s fair that New Hampshire and Iowa voters get more say than voters in other states, over and over again, decade after decade. I’m not gonna shed a tear for them in this case. But we need some sort of fair rotating schedule, not capricious changes based on the whims of party leadership.
One day nationally is a horrible answer. It prevents lesser known candidates from competing at all. It puts the power back in the hands of large donors – a horrible system that we have only in the last few cycles broken free from. If we had national primaries, we never would have had Carter, Clinton, or Obama; and even beyond that, Edwards would have walked away with the nomination in 2004 and Sanders would never have even put up a fight in 2016. Even when these alternate candidates don’t win, they move the eventual nominee’s policies and the party’s platform just by being somewhat competitive.
Honestly, going back to smoke-filled rooms where the party bosses chose candidates would be a better option than a national primary. I swear to god no one on this site even thinks about second and third-order effects in passing.
I would be in favor of a constantly rotating schedule of when states go in the cycle each presidential election that goes through all the states in a predictable order defined well in advance. I don’t think it’s fair that New Hampshire and Iowa voters get more say than voters in other states, over and over again, decade after decade. I’m not gonna shed a tear for them in this case. But we need some sort of fair rotating schedule, not capricious changes based on the whims of party leadership.
It’s good to know I’m not the only smoke filled room advocate that exists. I attribute a rise in populism to open primaries