Frontloading: Bad

A wise piece from the LA Times about how California's possible movement of their primary from June to February might upset the whole primary apple cart.    On this page we have debated whether South Dakota should join the race to the front of primary season, a notion I have consistently rejected.  This piece about California shows why.  As the author points out, if California moves to a February primary, an enormous number delegates will be selected by the middle of that month.  This means that it is likely that the parties will have essentially selected their nominees about eight months before the election.  Only candidates with big money can possibly run in what will essentially be a national primary.  Candidates will have to garner media attention in order to be viable.  This gives enormous power to the media.  Candidate will not run the personal hands-on campaigns of Iowa and New Hampshire.  They will run vapid big media campaigns long on platitudes and empty promises, but short on any personal connection to the voters.  We will end up with nominees who are essentially untested, since you just need a couple big days to gain the nomination.  Outsider candidates will be a thing of the past, as the ability to start slowly and gain momentum will be lost.  We can already see how candidates must announce ridiculously early in order to compete in our front loaded primary system.  For the 1972 election, George McGovern announced for president in January 1971.  At the time that was considered extremely early for an announcement.  As you can see here, as we approach the end of January 2007, we already have 20 announced candidates (of various levels of seriousness), with possibly more to come (e.g. Newt Gingrich and/or Chuck Hagel).  It is almost as if our presidential races never end.  There is never a time for governing, just campaigning. 

I suppose this bird has flown, so perhaps South Dakota should just look to its self-interest and join everyone else in the front of the bus.  But it'd be nice if at least one state held out for electoral sanity.