I know this is not the trendy opinion, but I think the move to change the primary date to February is a foolish idea.
The first time the idea came up was in 1994, when the Assemblyman Jim Costa suggested that California move its primary to late March to "make California" more relevant. Costa said he was tired of California being the bank for the rest of the country. Candidates should do more than just visit California for money, he said. The vote was usually over by June, he said, so California is not relevant to the ultimate selection of the parties’ nominees. A March primary was supposed to be an experiment to increase the influence of the state. I actually voted for that bill to test the Costa experiment.
It was a failure. The primary was over one week before the late March date. More important than that, it also made the state’s legislative and Congressional primaries a mess.
A second attempt to move the presidential primary to early March in 2000 failed as well. The experiments failed for one simple reason. Every time California moved its primary, every other state moved its primary ahead of California so that they would stay relevant as well. Unfortunately, the shrinking of the primary season has made it difficult for anyone but the presidential frontrunner to mount a campaign. If this rule had been in place in 1976, Ronald Reagan would have been out of the race in February, and not mounted his nearly successful challenge to Gerald Ford, a challenge that ultimately led to his successful 1980 campaign, which also developed late in the primary season (Reagan lost New Hampshire).
If California moves its primary to early February, so will everyone else, and the race will go to the candidate with the most money. The "B" candidates (such as Bill Clinton in 1992) will have no chance to get their message out, develop support, and give people a choice. California will not get more respect, support or candidates. The candidates will be in other states, making sure that their campaign is not over before they get to California, and when it is (as it has been every other time), they will not come to California.
California has already screwed up presidential politics with the early primary idea, it should try something different to make itself more relevant.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:00 am
And everyone’s focused on 2008, when – in a very unusual situation – both parties have highly competitive primaries. What happens in 2012 when only one party has a competitive primary? Imagine the initiatives that will be on the ballot!