The chaos in Iowa highlights the hazards of continuing to do things the way they’ve always been done. Letting Iowa and New Hampshire lead the process of finding out who might best lead the Democratic Party to victory has become increasingly problematic, for very many reasons. And the fighting every four years over which parties do what when in the nominating/delegate getting process wastes a lot of needless time and effort, and leaves even more hard feelings, when all our efforts should be reserved to winning the general election and not jockying over which state gets a bigger or earlier or better slice of the say in who gets to run in the general election.
There’s been lots of discussion about finding “representative” states, arguing over which state most closely aligns with minority representation, gender balance, wealth and income, or whether the state is reliably red or blue. These are all significant metrics, but ones that change over time, just like the Congressional map above. One thing that doesn’t change much, if at all, over time is the regional geography of the US.
So what if we took the 50 states of the US, divided them into blocks of 10 states each by geographic region, then had one state in each regional block—chosen randomly or in rotation each 4 year cycle—hold 5 primaries on the same day or time? And for the purposes of being as inclusive as possible, let the Pacific territories vote with Hawaii, D.C. with Maryland, and Puerto Rico with Florida, when those states win the lottery or come up in the rotation. If the choice were random each time, the 5 first primary states wouldn’t be known until a set time before the general election. That way, no one has to camp out in a state for years at a time, and no state has to put up with candidates wandering about and through every diner, workshop and factory floor for months on end. If chosen in rotation, then we would know 4 years ahead which of the 5 states in the lead would be, and since it’s done by rotation, every state in every region would have a chance to go first and get attention focused on its particular issues and culture.
One possible geographic division along the lines of this proposal would be to group the 5 blocks of 10 states as follows:
New England: ME, MA, NH, VT, NY, RI, CT, NJ, PA, DE
Southern Coastal: MD(+DC), VA, NC, SC, GA, FL(+PR), AL, MS, LA, TX
Central Continent: WV, TN, KY, OH, IN, MI, WI, IL, MO, AR
Mountain West: MN, IA, NE, KS, OK, NM, ND, SD, WY, UT
Western: HI(+Pacific Islands), CA, AZ, NV, ID, WA, MT, AK, CO, OR
If the rotation was set up alphabetically, the first five states to hold simultaneous primaries (I’m with Kos in ridding us of caucuses) in 2024 would be CT, AL, AR, IA, and AK. In 2028 it would be DE, FL, IN, KS, and AZ, and so on every four years. A random rotation might see the same state chosen twice in a row (or more if truly random), so alphabetical might be considered fairer and allows every state a shot at sharing the lead with 4 other states at some time. That way large states, small states, rural states, urban states, largely white and largely minority, western, eastern, northern and southern states would all have a way of drawing attention to their issues during a presidential campaign at some point in the future.
Such a system would be fair, inclusive, sharing, representative, and democratic. All values the Democratic Party supposedly holds dear, and certainly should support and demonstrate in its operations, and decisions. Including the one on who gets to be President.
What do you think?