Thursday, April 28, 2005

Moving the Primary

I am in favor of moving all presidential primaries to later in the year, like say April through June. I am not sure what good it would do to move Ohio's primary alone, without the rest of the country following suit. Iowa and New Hampshire are quaint traditions, but they harm the process. A shorter window would open up the primary to more candidates and give a chance for real debate inside the party on the issues. The fear of have variable opinions inside the parties, really hurt politics and governance. I am not talking abortion here. I am talking about the real issues, like trade, foreign policy, Social Security, and health care. If the parties hashed it out on the floor of the conventions over issues, then people on the street might actually pay attention. I hate to use TV as an example, but the West Wing's season finale covered a brokered convention that looked like a mess, but Conventional Wisdom was wrong, people watched the floor fights. The paid attention in part for the excitement, but politics is exciting. It was sport, but it was a battle of ideas, not an insignificant game. Let’s for once learn from past (and TV) and try and make the primary race and conventions matter, not just a coronation.

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