When the DNC decided to add in Nevada between the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary all hell was essentially guaranteed to break loose, particularly right around December of 2007. Roger Simon of the site/news source The Politico talks about the hissy-fit that New Hampshire will likely launch right around Christmas this December. While I consider myself an active and dedicated member of the Netroots, I’m not one who is advocating removing Iowa from its position at the top of the calendar (you might be able call Markos one of the leaders of the movement). I’m sure if you go through the archives you’ll be able to find instances where I’ve said changing the calendar is probably something worthwhile. I’m not so sure I endorse that anymore.
Not to sound privileged or elitist from my POV as an Iowan participating the first caucus/primary event in the nation, but those who underestimate or take digs at Iowa’s role should really take the time to come out and watch our caucuses in action. We have an amazing base of Iowa Democrats who take their job of quizzing and judging and measuring the candidates seriously. Labor candidates are involved, as are other Democratic leaning organizations and other interest groups seeking to seriously and intently study those candidates seeking the nomination. Iowa’s had a very unique role in the process with some of the Democratic caucuses being meaningful while others not so much. John Deeth might be the Iowa blogosphere’s expert on the caucuses, so I refer you to his Caucus Box Set post where he offers his views on the influential caucuses of the past and the ones that will never really register in the history books. Whether we pick the eventual nominee or not, the process itself is important. Hopefully in the future I’ll have a more in-depth post in defense of the Iowa caucuses, because they really are worth defending.
Anyway, while will all hell break loose in December? Because that’s when NH SoS Gardner will likely take the date of the NH primary and make it leap ahead of Nevada’s primary, and even possibly Iowa. That puts a lot of people in between a rock and hard place as they try and decide what they will do. Iowa can move up its caucus date to keep itself with first in the nation status, should New Hampshire jump in front, but in the end, both Iowa and NH will end up being damn near meaningless because the DNC rules will prohibit our states from getting delegates from jumping ahead of schedule — and contrary to Roger Simon’s speculation, I can almost guarantee that the DNC would make sure Iowa and NH get no delegates. At the same time IA and NH wouldn’t get delegates, it would also probably be the final nail in the coffin to the caucus schedule as we know it, at least with IA and NH at the top. The Rules and Bylaws Committee would ultimately have to entirely rewrite the nomination system for Democrats and could fundamentally change the presidential selection process for our party. Meanwhile, who knows what the Republicans will be doing. Working together in setting a calendar, at least early on in the season, has been largely beneficial for both groups.
What should Iowa do if NH decides to leap their date earlier than the DNC has scheduled them? I’m a big proponent of leaving our date the same and letting NH to flail on its own. No matter what, come the 2012 election (meaning in 2009 and 2010), there will be an even bigger debate about the calendar than there was in 2005 and 2006 in the aftermath of the 2004 election. With Iowa Democrats at least respecting the system as set up by the national committee, we can at least hold a small bargaining chip by saying we respected procedure and provided a means to send our delegates legitimately to the national convention.
Finally, imagine the position it puts individual campaigns in. Come November and December, I’d hate to be the campaign managers and political directors, hell even state directors in the early states, on any of the campaigns. Decisions about which states to seriously participate in and which to blow off becomes very interesting. The moves will have to encompass options beyond strategy and ultimately end up being pretty unfair in their implications to long-term relations with state parties, individuals, and even the national party.
Like I said, between a rock and hard place.
I love being first, but I don’t think it’s fair, and I really don’t like the caucuses. It’s terrible for shift workers, people with young children, elderly people who don’t like to go out at night, people without cars, and so on. You can’t vote absentee, so we lose all the people who go south for the winter. There’s no secret ballot, so we lose the people who feel intimidated by stating a public preference.
And there is very little real debate/persuasion going on at the caucus anyway.
I would prefer a primary. But we can’t have a primary, because NH always gets the first primary. So we’re stuck with the caucus.
I can’t remember who had this idea first, but I like the idea of the state that had the closest result (in percentage terms) from the previous presidential election leading off the primary process next cycle, followed by the state with the next-closest result from the previous presidential election, and so on. It doesn’t guarantee that we would start with small states, but it would force the Democrats to work on their party organization in the swing states.
It would eliminate horse-trading at the DNC, because you couldn’t argue with the simple arithmetic of which states were the most competitive last cycle.
Chris, Has the DNC ever withheld delegates when a state has moved it’s primary process up from where it was originally planned? If not, why would they do it now? Truly, if whoever wins Iowa becomes the nominee do you really think the DNC is going to tell the nominee that they can’t have their delegates from the state that they first won seated at the National Convention? If Iowa doesn’t go first in 2008 Iowa will never go first again. I thought we were all told we wouldn’t have this problem? What happened?