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DEL.ICIO.USWait a minute. Go back to that part about George Bush
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In a phoner with Tim Bryant of WGAU in Athens, U.S. Johnny Isakson declared himself no fan of the movement toward an early presidential primary that could settle Democratic and Republican hash by early February.
Bryant was kind enough to send us the sound, which you can get here.
In summary, Isakson said:
“Personally, I don’t think it’s good to put them all so early and have the nominee determined nine or ten months before the election. Just think back to recent presidential primaries.
“The implosion of Howard Dean, George — if you had an early primary, George Bush probably wouldn’t be president today. If you had an early primary, Howard Dean probably would have been the [Democratic] nominee. It’s kind of a winner-take-all, one-day national lottery,” Isakson said.
“I think having a protracted period of time, in the past it’s been six months, January through June, where the nation went and had primaries every couple of weeks around the country, it really was a good test of the candidates that aired out all the issues,” he said.
“That is a lot better pace and that is a lot better process than having two candidates isolated and exposed for 10 months when anything could happen.”
Comments
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By Nicholas
April 3, 2007 4:39 PM | Link to this
Never thought I would say this, but Isakson has a point. A longer primary season does make for better nominees in the end. The front loading to me seems to put more emphasis on money and how much of it you can raise. I would love for someone to tell me how Romney has raised $20 million, but can’t get out of single digits. That should tell us something. I see the point of not allowing so much influence for Iowa and New Hampshire, but to basically have a national primary on the 5th of February is a bit much. But then this is coming from a Democrat who feels that a longer primary would increase the chances that Mrs. Clinton is not the Democratic nominee.
By odinseye2k
April 3, 2007 11:29 PM | Link to this
So, Isakson’s point is that if the primaries were shorter, we’d have had Howard Dean instead of John Kerry versus pre-fundy John McCain instead of W?
Someone tell me how this is a bad thing again?
Besides which, how is this more of a winner-take-all “lottery” than the actual general election vote?
By Cliff Norris
April 5, 2007 11:26 AM | Link to this
I have often thought that we should have a set of primary elections that rotates around the country. Divide the country into four regions: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and West. Then on the first Tuesday of February, March, April and May, each region votes. Every four years, the regions cycle. In 2008, for example, the order could be Northeast first, then Southeast, Midwest and West. In 2012, Southeast first, then Midwest, West and Northeast, and so on. With regional groupings, candidates would have less of a geographical challenge. By rotating which region is first, eventually every part of the country would have the opportunity to be the first to put the candidates to the test. By staggering each primary by a month, that leaves plenty of room between each election for more campaigning and fund-raising.