Miami
FLORIDA’S governor, Charlie Crist, signed a law in May that moved the state’s 2008 presidential primary to Jan. 29, one week after New Hampshire’s. The idea behind this move was to put Florida in the national spotlight and force candidates to pay more attention to the state’s issues.
As a Florida native who spent almost 40 years serving the state in Tallahassee and Washington, I have never been concerned that Florida — the largest swing state, with 27 electoral votes — would be ignored in 2008. But in front-loading the primary calendar, Florida and the other states that have moved their contests to Feb. 5 or earlier have unintentionally damaged the presidential election process.
In the 22 days from Jan. 14 to Feb. 5, voters in more than two dozen states — including California, Illinois and New York — will cast primary and caucus ballots. Their zeal to stand at the front of the line will poke irreparable holes in a political screen that has served Americans well: the living rooms of Iowa and New Hampshire.
As a presidential candidate four years ago, I stood in many of those living rooms and met highly knowledgeable voters who wanted to judge candidates up close and personal. They demanded substantive, well-reasoned answers to specific questions about issues from Iraq to health care to agriculture.
In these Iowa and New Hampshire living rooms, presidential contenders meet a substantial percentage of the people who vote in those states. Several times, voters in living room audiences told me that they would have to reserve judgment on my candidacy because they had met me “only once.” I withdrew from the presidential race before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary and didn’t have the opportunity to win their votes, but Iowans and Granite Staters won my deep respect for the diligence and seriousness with which they exercised their first-in-the-nation status.
Iowa and New Hampshire are not perfect, but they are more likely to eliminate flawed candidates than states where voters see only television commercials. In 1972, Ed Muskie, a former vice presidential candidate and Maine senator, was supposed to trounce his Democratic rivals in New Hampshire. But voters picked up on Senator Muskie’s tendency to wear his temper on his sleeve. He barely won a contest that should have been a cakewalk. His candidacy soon ended.
Twenty-four years later, Iowa caucus-goers killed the hopes of Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, another early favorite. In the 1996 Republican contest, Mr. Gramm dazzled insiders and pundits with his money-raising prowess. After Iowans met the acerbic Mr. Gramm face-to-face, they voted him fifth in the caucuses. He dropped out of the race.
New Hampshire voters did not derail the candidacy of Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, but they tried. By giving John McCain a resounding 19-point victory, New Hampshire primary voters sent Americans a strong early warning about a man whose presidency has been a major disappointment.
Although Iowa and New Hampshire will not lose all influence in 2008, Sioux City and Nashua may become little more than stopovers on the way to San Francisco and New York. The two candidates who win their parties’ nominations will do so with less of the rigorous inspection performed in Iowa and New Hampshire living rooms.
In our new political environment, Iowa and New Hampshire are unlikely to reclaim the role they once played in screening our future presidents. Too many other states are eager to influence the process, too.
So if we can’t recreate the past, what would be the next best screen? Some have wryly suggested a political version of “American Idol,” with voters sizing up candidates from living rooms across the nation and eliminating one candidate per week until the party nominee is chosen. I think the better analogy is college football’s Bowl Championship Series, which rotates the title game from year to year among the traditional bowl games.
A series of five regional primaries, spaced three weeks apart and rotated every four years, would give voters from Miami to Maui to Manchester opportunities to be first in the nation. Candidates could spend more time with citizens of neighboring states and less time on coast-to-coast flights. Because the primaries would be stretched out over three months rather than three weeks, reporters and other political scorekeepers could not rush to declare a national winner.
Regional primaries are not as intimate as living rooms in Cedar Rapids and Portsmouth. But they might accomplish what the 2008 primary season probably will not: a comprehensive and meticulous screening of the men and women who would be president.
