ProudProgressive

Based on the recent news, one would think that Iowa and New Hampshire are single-handedly electing our next president — or at least nominating the candidate from each party. Sadly, that last notion might be true: Following the results of the Iowa caucuses last week, based on only a few hundred thousand people’s opinions, several presidential candidates have officially dropped out of the race. They couldn’t even wait for some slightly more populated states like, say, New York and California to vote?

I have two major complaints here. First, why do Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and a few others get to have their primaries before the rest of the country? Second, why is everyone so obsessed with the results? Numerically, the states with early primaries don’t have much of a say in nominating the presidential candidates. But based on the media attention and the way voters take those results into account, these states have an influence highly disproportionate to their populations.

These early primaries and caucuses are legitimately news, and I guess I can’t fault the news media too much for reporting it (incessantly). But I can’t stand the way it affects the races. Having lived in California for all of the previous presidential primaries of my voting life, I’ve never had much of a say in the nominations; the contest was pretty much decided by the time I was allowed to vote. My candidate of choice in 2004, Howard Dean, had dropped out long before the California voting day.

To fix this problem, I would love to see the country move to a national, one-day primary. That way, everyone can vote for the candidate he or she prefers, without being influenced by results from other states. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the Colorado caucuses on February 5. Hopefully, we’ll have more than one candidate left in the race by then!

Tags: Caucuses, Iowa, National Primary, New Hampshire, Presidential Primaries 2008