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Small State Primaries

By pharrell

Mike Huckabee's meteoric rise over the past few weeks is another illustration of the virtues of allowing a few small states to hold the first presidential primaries. Huckabee, the affable former governor of Arkansas, has raised little money and, until recently, drew even less media attention--two facts that would have doomed his candidacy beyond any hope if he actually had to compete in the next few weeks in the populous American states. If you can't run ads on TV (and ad buys in New York and California are measured millions of dollars per week each), and you can't get the pooh-bahs of the coastal media elite to write about your events, you're DOA in politics: On election day, people won't even know your name.

But in a small state, Iowa, or New Hampshire, a candidate can still try to win votes the old fashioned way, going town to town, diner-to-diner, meeting with pastors, local politicians, town civic leaders, star athletes, and ordinary voters. There are few enough people that a talented retail politician can still win a significant percentage of the vote this way, driving up his poll numbers in the state (Huckabee may now lead in Iowa)--and, by doing so, finally force the media to pay attention. And a win on the first election night can propel a candidate who was little more than an asterix in the national news, like Jimmy Carter in 1976, to the front of the his party's pack. I think that we as a country would like to preserve that last glimmer of openness in the political system, rather than creating a primary process where money and fame truly are all that matter.

Like I wrote yesterday, I don't support the current primary system, which gives a few voters in the same two states, Iowa and New Hampshire, disproportionate influence year after year. I've merely developed some sympathy for the virtues of the current system, and hope that we incorporate them into whatever new primary calender we create going forward.

Full post as published by Harrell Blog on December 05, 2007 (boomark / email).