Saturday, December 18, 2004

Democrat(s) Seeks to End Iowa, N.H. Power

AP has a story about how possible DNC chairman candidate Simon Rosenberg is against the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary being the first primaries. The 41-year-old Democratic activist wants states with more diversity and from different regions of the country to have more of a role. Rosenberg plans to announce after the holidays whether he will run for Democratic chairman.

"Iowa and New Hampshire should not go first in the primary calendar, and we need to create a system that allows other states to have equal footing," said Rosenberg.

"I have no problem with Iowa and New Hampshire being part of the early states, but their days as the sole arbiters of who our nominee is should come to an end," he said Friday.

The Democratic National Committee formed a 40-member panel a week ago to study whether to shake up the dominance that Iowa and New Hampshire hold in presidential nominations.

I wholeheartedly agree. Two small lily-white states shouldn't have so much sway over who gets to be the nominee. We saw what happened this last time. All states after fell like dominoes to Iowa's and New Hampshire's winner - John Kerry. It is clear we need some reform. I'm not sure which, if any, proposed I agree with yet. I personally favor Howard Dean over Simon Rosenberg and anyone else right now, but I would hope, if Dean becomes chairman, he would follow Rosenberg and other's advice to end Iowa's and New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation status.

4 comments:

Alexander Wolfe said...

Sorry NH and Iowa...but I agree. I hate that these two small and relatively unrepresentatives states have so much influence on who gets selected. Frankly I think no single state or even small selection of states should decide who the nominee will be. I hate the fact that Texas Democrats have to put up with who people in NH think is the best candidate.

adam said...

Some have suggested Missouri, since in almost every way it is somewhat of a mini-America within America. But there are other ideas such as regional primaries, but then, again you don't want a South/Southwest candidate to emerge versus a Northeast/Northwest candidate or something like that.

Alexander Wolfe said...

I suppose it would too much of a dream to suppose a large state like California, Texas or New York might play a part.

adam said...

Well, I think we should have 6-7 states go at a time dividing them up between different regions. So you'd have like say Arizona, Connecticut, Iowa, Oregon, Florida, Georgia, etc. go on the same day.