the further we go / and older we grow / the more we know / the less we show

Dr. Rausch at West Texas A&M, who has been kind enough to comment here on more than one occasion, writes an interesting overview of the presidential primary process in this morning's Amarillo Globe-Republican.

My level of hatred and resentment toward the primary process has risen in direct proportion to my level of political involvement. It reached a zenith last election when I traveled to Ioway to canvass and saw the caucus system firsthand. A number of the people I spoke to had less idea how the caucuses worked than I did. Obviously, few of them intended to show up to a time-intensive process that required them to stand up in front of their neighbors and state their preference. Add to that the endless potential for monkeywrenching by non-viable candidates and you have a system that can only be described as bullshit.

And yet the media continues to insist on coronating a nominee the instant the Iowayns leave the schools and churches and abandoned filling stations in which they caucus and go back to their cornfields.

Granted, they're often wrong, but in the last two elections grass roots partisans who aren't Iowayns or New Hampshiristas have faced the specter of party leaders demanding that they show unity by shutting up and voting for whom they're told. Last time, supporters of everyone but Kerry were informed that we must vote for Kerry in the primary if we wanted him to be strong enough to beat Bush. We saw how well that worked out, but this time around Obama supporters are ordering those who prefer Edwards to ignore their consciences and vote for Obama, based on some subjective fantasy that Obama is closer to Edwards than Clinton.

Rausch evokes the older system in which party leaders, along with the nominating conventions, basically chose the nominees. He wonders if we could find a way "to make the old processes new again."

I know the arguments against a single-day national primary, but poor folks already can't run for President and the nominees already ignore large blocks of people. A single-day national primary seems to me like the least bad possibility, but if that's impossible, maybe we should go back to party leaders choosing our candidates with no pretense and no apology.

It would be exactly like what we have now, just more honest.

spacedark