With Pie Hopes and Brave Hearts
Many Marylanders who are not me will vote today in the first material Presidential primary I can remember here. (I’m registered Independent and Maryland doesn’t let you change registration after November until the primary is over.) I’m enough of a homer, though, to idly note that if you want a “small state” to replace Iowa or New Hampshire as the early-campaign bellwether contest, you could do worse than pick us. Our funny shape means that we comprise most terrain types you find east of the Rockies: we got mountains; we got prairies; we got oceans white with foam (and runoff from chicken plants). We’ve got big cities, small cities, suburbs, exurbs and tiny little villages tucked away in hollows. We aren’t really purple – more indigo – but we’ve had a Republican governor this century, a Republican Senator within living memory and some safe GOP Congressional districts. And we’re still small enough that if the schedule permitted an Iowa-level length of focus, you could meaningfully cover the state by retail campaigning.
Never happen, of course, but you could do worse, America.
Comment by Leonard —
February 12, 2008 @ 10:02 am
If you could register with either party and thus be allowed to vote, would you? In other words, as a libertarian do you see any moral issue in affiliating yourself with, and thus endorsing, in a sense, those who violate rights (Ds and Rs)?
If the primary was open, who’d you vote for?
Do you endorse that candidate? Why, or why not?
It would be interesting to get UO-readers’ takes on real reforms for the primary system to make it work better. But disempowering Iowa for MD is no more fair to the other 48 than what we have.
Comment by Leonard —
February 12, 2008 @ 10:04 am
Argh. #1 had an unordered list w/ 4 items. In preview, anyway. Evidently lists don’t work when posted.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
February 12, 2008 @ 11:42 am
I grew up in Maryland and agree, it’s exceptionally diverse (in both senses). Between the DC suburbs, Baltimore, the Eastern Shore, and western Maryland, you’ve got pretty much the entire east-of-the-Mississippi U.S. in miniature.
I also got left out of the primary in my adoptive state, New York, as I’m a Working Families Party registrant. Annoying, but what’s the solution?
One point of view is that primaries are internal party affairs, meaning that (a) parties should be free to structure them however they want and (b) the goal should be to produce a candidate who is a strong representative of the *party*. The general public’s interest is in having a clear, distinct set of alternatives in the general election, not in direct input into the party’s chocies.
The other point of view is that in practice, party primaries are now part of the offical electoral process and should be subject to the same rules. In districts where one party dominates (i.e. most of them), people who can’t vote in primaries are effectively disenfranchised. And even where you have contested elections, parties in the US don’t have the kind of clear programs and genuine memberships that the idea of an internal party process assumes.
In the real world, parties may be too tangled a mix of the “public” and the “private” for a clean solution. Which isn’t to say that we couldn’t do better than the current system.
Comment by The Modesto Kid —
February 12, 2008 @ 11:51 am
Isn’t Maryland also ambiguously Southern and Northern? Like it was a slave state but not confederate or something? That could help your case.
Comment by Jon H —
February 12, 2008 @ 11:52 am
They’ve seen The Wire. They’ll be too scared for Iowa-esque campaigning.
Comment by joe —
February 12, 2008 @ 12:09 pm
The parties should keep 2-3 small states first in the nominating process, and have them each hold their contests a week apart, as they do now.
But they should rotate every four years among the ten smallest states.
Comment by Nell —
February 12, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
Your suggestion will strongly appeal to members of the House or Senate who are running for President. They’ll miss fewer votes, and save on travel expense and wear & tear.
A side benefit of the kickoff caucus, little realized outside Iowa, is the development of local talent as electoral organizers. Maryland might not experience this so strongly because it’s so close to densely populated larger states, whose aspiring operatives will move to MD.
Comment by Thoreau —
February 12, 2008 @ 3:52 pm
I’d say that if a party wants to select delegates via a closed election, or caucus, or whatever, then they should be free to select those delegates via a closed process conducted at their own expense. OTOH, if they want to select their delegates at public expense, then the process should be open to all citizens of voting age.