The Heck With Iowa and New Hampshire. I Want a Chance.

As the campaigns (or what is left of them) leave Iowa and get ready for New Hampshire, let me make a couple of comments, not on the results but on the process.

First, obviously the whole nomination process takes too long, finishes too quickly, and both starts and ends too early. It is not good to have the presidential campaign start almost two years before the election – assuming it didn’t start even earlier. (An unaffiliated group ran TV ads for Hillary in New Hampshire as far back as August of 2005.)

One of the problems with the long campaign is that it is hard enough for Congress to do anything intelligent in regular times, let alone during a campaign. When campaigns get too long, we get laws and decisions out of Congress that are even dumber than normal. Sometimes, the government actually needs to make hard decisions. Congress can’t seem to do that during election season, and with election season getting longer, there is even less time for the politicians in Washington to actually do what is right.

Second, making the campaign as long as it is means that the news media runs out of new things to write about the candidates even quicker (because the candidates keep giving the same basic speech over and over again), so they turn to writing about who’s ahead, as opposed to who is saying what.

This horse race mentality, which is constantly emphasized and re-emphasized by the media, makes lots of states want to go first because going first gets you the chance to actually have an impact on the election. These states then try to leapfrog each other to get the earliest date, which results in the first primaries and caucuses coming earlier and earlier each time. That makes the campaign longer and longer, and that makes the time for the people in Washington to deal with those problems that really need to be dealt with even shorter.

But not only do the primaries/caucuses need to start later, they also need to be more spread out. Having so many primaries so close to each other, and having so many primaries on one day, like on February 5, which is this year’s "Super Tuesday," makes it almost impossible for anybody to have a chance except those few candidates who have big piles of money and/or some kind of media-driven momentum from the first couple of primaries/caucuses. That isn’t good because it unnecessarily limits the number of the candidates and it effectively limits the people who can be a candidate.

But even those people who suggest a more intelligent schedule for the primaries/caucuses, i.e., one that starts later and is more spread out, still give place of honor to Iowa and New Hampshire.

Well, I disagree – because I want a chance to pick who our President will be and because I want a chance to pick between more than just the two people who have been selected by Iowa and New Hampshire and anointed by the news media. I don’t see why Iowa and New Hampshire get to have the first caucus and primary every time. So they have "always" had it. So they think it is tradition. So what.

My objection to Iowa and New Hampshire always going first is not based on the fact that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is reflective of the country as a whole. That’s not it. I’m talking about wanting a chance to actually help pick the candidates myself.

For example, I resent the fact that Iowa gets to kick out candidates like Chris Dodd and Joe Biden. They are long-time senators. They have the experience to do the job. But because they somehow did not connect with enough people in Iowa and because the news media has decided that once you have "lost," they won’t report on you, except to talk about when you are going to withdraw, I don’t get to pick them. The point is not that Iowa picks the winner (it often doesn’t). The point is that it gets to kick out good candidates, and I don’t like that.

Also, it would be nice some year to get to participate in the kind of politicking that goes on in Iowa and New Hampshire. It would be nice to get to see and hear the candidates up front and personal. I don’t see why people in Iowa and New Hampshire get to have it all the time and I don’t get to have it ever.

Obviously, none of the candidates is going to say that Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t be first. Even if they believe it, none of them is willing to say it. It would be worse than coming out against St. Ethanol, and of the major candidates only John McCain had the courage to do that. (A thought: Isn’t ethanol the perfect reason why Iowa shouldn’t be first. Think of all the money wasted on ethanol because Iowa’s caucuses are first, and almost every presidential candidate is more concerned about doing well in Iowa than saying what is right.)

Iowa and New Hampshire shouldn’t always be first. Other states and other voters should get a chance, too. After all, Lincoln didn’t talk about a government "of the people of Iowa and New Hampshire, by the people of Iowa and New Hampshire, and for the people of Iowa and New Hampshire". It’s time the rest of us had a chance, a real chance, a chance that really means something, to pick the people who run for President. Iowa and New Hampshire have had their turn. It’s time for the rest of us to have a chance to go first.