Financial Times Editorial comment: Impatient primaries

Financial Times Editorial comment: Impatient primaries
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: May 22 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 22 2007 03:00


State affiliates of America's Democratic and Republican parties are in revolt over the timetable for next year's (and quite possibly this year's) primary elections. For fear of being late and irrelevant, every state wants to be early in selecting its presidential nominees. They have shunted the calendar forward, and it is still moving.

Currently 23 states, including California and New York, have moved their primaries up to February 5. These states will send so many delegates to the national conventions in August and September 2008 that the nominations could be sewn up in that first burst of primaries, fully nine months before the general election. Florida now says it will vote on January 29. New Hampshire, a tiny state whose early primary has long given it disproportionate clout in national politics, has said that a primary in December is not out of the question.

Where does the public interest lie? Should it concern American voters at large if this shambles is the best the party bosses can do? Though the honest answer is "not much" (this trend is not about to cripple American democracy), two points are still worth noting. First, there is a real benefit in spreading the primaries out a little. This enables candidates to spend longer in each state during the period when people are mulling their choices most carefully - in the days before an election. It also gives voters in the country at large a better sense of what people in other states are thinking. Second, the interval between the nomination of the presidential candidates and the general election - that is, the span of the election campaign proper - should not be too long. It is bad for democracy to bore the electorate senseless. Nine months (and counting) is far too long.

Spreading the primaries out a little without fixing the outcome too quickly does require a preference for small states to go first. And keeping the general-election campaign short (if you can call, say, six months short) requires a later start to the whole process.

If the states were willing to accept central co-ordination, it would be easy to draw up a formula that satisfied both criteria. In such a scheme, New Hampshire, as one small state among many, would have to settle for less limelight than it is accustomed to, but more than the size of its population by itself would justify. Big states would have to be patient. The electorate as a whole would benefit.

Are the states willing to be directed? It seems not. The primary calendar will have to become even sillier first.