Below The Beltway

Publius at Obsidian Wings makes these suggestions about fixing the primary system in both parties:

Replace Iowa and New Hampshire with Rotating Regional Calendar

The Michigan/Florida debacle is a direct consequence of Iowa and New Hampshire’s unholy monopoly on the early elections. David Broder aside, there is absolutely no justification for allowing the same two states — states without major urban centers or diverse populations — to host the first elections every cycle. And it’s especially unwise given that one of these states holds caucuses and forces all candidates to embrace ethanol-first policies.

This is one that people have talked about at the end of almost every election cycle for the past twenty years. Even before this year’s near disaster where we ended up having the Iowa Caucuses two days after the Christmas/New Year’s holiday ended, many people have pointed out, correctly, that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire can be said to be representative of the nation as a whole and yet both of them together have a huge impact on who makes it through the first round of a given year’s primaries.

The regional primary system that Publius talks about, with states grouped into four or five groups each of which has their primary on the same day and each at least 3-4 weeks apart, makes complete sense and has also been the subject of pundit discussions for years.

But it’s never been implemented, and I think there are several reasons for this.

For one thing, there are some interests, most notably Iowa and New Hampshire themselves, who have an interest in maintaining the status quo that motivates them more than any general desire for reform motivates the rest of us.  Second, creating the kind of regional primary system that Publius talks about isn’t as easy as it seems primarily because the national parties have only limited control over what the states do and a limited ability to punish states that don’t adhere to the plan; as this year’s experience with Michigan and Florida demonstrate nicely. If anything the DNC’s failure to stick to it’s guns in the punishment of two states that openly defied it’s rules this year makes it unlikely that they’d be able to do the same thing in 2012 or 2016 if some state decided to schedule a primary out of time with the regional primary they are supposed to be a part of. Finally, the truth of the matter is that whatever passion exists for changing the primary system might exist right now isn’t going to last very long past the end of the primary season itself. It won’t be until next year at the earliest — and more likely 2011 or later depending on which side wins in November — that either of the two parties will sit down and begin the process of planning the next round of contested primaries.

This is one of those great ideas that, sadly, will most likely never be implemented.

Kill the Caucuses

These should simply be eliminated — no ifs, ands, or buts. The Clinton people are right that they are disenfranchising. If you are (1) old; (2) have small children; or (3) work at night, it’s a lot harder for you to sit around the high school gym for hours listening to others talk. And even if you’re none of these things, caucuses still sharply increase the “costs” of voting. If, by contrast, you can just walk in and walk out, you’d be more likely to go vote.

Personally, I’m not convinced that caucuses are any better or worse than primaries. As I’ve noted before, as a matter of principle I don’t think that the state should be using tax dollars for what is essentially a private act — the selection of a political party’s nominee. To the extent that they make it more likely that the winner reflects the views of people who are actually part of a particular party, then they are, in fact, better than a primary where anyone, even voters not registered with the party, can vote in a primary.

More importantly, the method of selection — primary vs. caucus — is a choice of the individual states and state-level parties. I don’t like the idea of the national party forcing that choice on it’s members.

That said, however, caucuses do seem to present some problems, especially when you’re talking about a mixed caucus/primary like the one Texas had this year. Hillary Clinton got the most votes in the primary on March 6th and yet it was Barack Obama who walked away with the most Texas delegates, thanks to the strange caucus that takes place on primary night after the polls close, meaning that some Texas Democrats effectively get to vote twice.

Kill the Superdelegates (Metaphorically)

While we’re at it, let’s get rid of these guys too. The whole superdelegate concept seems illegitimate to me (in a normative rather than positive sense). Indeed, the Democrats dodged a bullet on this front as well — things could have been worse. Even though superdelegates will ultimately decide this year’s outcome, Obama has a pretty clear (not huge, but significant) lead in pledged delegates. Thus, the superdelegates aren’t “robbing” anyone.

[T]he superdelegate concept creates terrible incentives. Even worse, it creates the conditions for a true intraparty meltdown in the case of a virtual tie (indeed, we got a glimpse of that this cycle). For this reason, I would recommend eliminating them entirely. But if the Democratic rabble is deemed unfit for democracy, then superdelegates should at least consist only of elected officials — no DNC officials allowed. We need some modicum of accountability.

This is a uniquely Democratic problem. The GOP grants delegate status to Republican officeholders, but they don’t have nearly the role in the nomination process that Democratic superdelegates have. The question of what to do with the delegates, though, isn’t all that easy. They came about, after all, because the changes that the DNC implemented after 1968 gave what some believed to be too much power to primary voters and party activists; resulting in the nomination in 1972 of a man who everyone with a sense of logic should have realized had no chance of winning the White House. The superdelegates were put in place principally to act as a stop-gap with the idea being that party well-being would be their primary consideration.  As we almost learned this year, though, they are placed in an impossible situation when they become the ones who decide the nominee.

And one final thought:

There may yet be some movement for reform of the primary system that can overcome the political realities that dictate against changing something that has been around for 40 years, but this much is certain; if it doesn’t happen after this year’s election, it won’t happen for a long time.