When you’re wrong, I have always thought, admit it. So I am going to admit it. I was wrong, this year’s California primary actually meant something. Candidates came here spent money, and actually paid attention to Californians. I thought it wouldn’t happen, and I was wrong.
I mainly objected to moving the primary forward, and I thought that, once again, that would be a futile act. It had been every other time we moved it forward, and I thought this would be no different. In my opinion, California has really screwed up the presidential primary system in its effort to be relevant. I still believe that.
I think I was wrong because of circumstances unique to this primary. For the first time since 1952, no one on the ballot has been president or vice president (that is, in every presidential election since 1952, at least one of the candidates on the ballot was president or vice president when the general election started). That leaves the election wide open, and raises a lot of uncertainty. I think that factor, more than any other, is why California was relevant this year. It is also my opinion that California would still have been relevant if its primary was held in June for the same reason that it was relevant in February.
The big difference is that putting it in February really helped screw up the presidential primary process. It is happening too fast. The candidates are not being allowed to explain who they are. The national discussion of who ought to be president is too condensed. The discussions that have followed a presidential election in the past are simply not occuring.
There are two reasons for extending the primary system. First is just the mechanics of voting. As absentee balloting has become more popular, the primary season has shortened. The negative effects of that became very obvious in this election. Anyone who voted in California by absentee ballot before the Floriday primary never knew or understood before they cast their vote that neither Giuliani or Edwards were going to be in the race on election. They, therefore, cast their vote on less than full information. That is not good for any election.
Second, what if conservatives had more than a week to coalesce behind a single candidate. We know the polls for Romney began to surge in the last week of the campaign, but only about fifty per cent of the voters cast their vote on election, the rest voted by absentee. If there was more time, perhaps some of the early voters would have been influenced by the post Florida discussions.
In the end, deliberation over who should be president is a good thing. Unfortunately, California has undercut that deliberation by trying to jump into the front of the primary line. That is not a good thing, and I think we are worse off as a country because of it. We should move it back.
As a side note, the Republican process of choosing their delegates on a district by district basis was a rousing success. Candidates actually focussed on the districts, worked the districts, built organizations district by district, and the Republican party is stronger because of it. Interestingly enough, it didn’t have a huge effect on the delegation. McCain got 42 per cent of the vote, but got 95 per cent of the delegates. Those who worried about a divided delegation don’t have that much to worry about, and the California party is a lot stronger due to the rule change. Not a bad trade off.
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