Looks like the Democratic Party is set to jettison Iowa as the dominant state in future early presidential primary races. Good — Iowa is too white, too caucussy and too Republican to make sense as the winnowing field for Democrats.
(WaPo) Democratic Party officials circulated plans Monday for a 2024 presidential nominating calendar that would select up to five states to hold contests before March based upon a new set of criteria that appears designed to exclude a return of the Iowa caucuses to their first-in-the-nation status.
The document, labeled “draft for discussion,” defines three criteria for the party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee to select early nominating states: the diversity of the electorate “including ethnic, geographic, union representation, economic, etc.;” the competitiveness of the state in a general election; and the ability of the state to administer a “fair, transparent and inclusive” process.
Iowa lacks significant racial or ethnic diversity, is no longer viewed as a swing state and is bound by law to a hold a nominating caucus, not a statewide primary.
I read something the other day about making Delaware the new Iowa. It’s small enough for retail politics and also pretty diverse. Maybe President Biden will put his thumb on the scale for the Incorporation State.
Open thread!
Baud
Oh wow. I didn’t think I’d ever see the day. Too bad I’m already a yellow dog Dem, or I’d vote for them just for this
ETA: Recognizing that this hasn’t been adopted yet.
Baud
Also interesting since we don’t know yet whether Biden will be in a position to run again, so we don’t know when the new schedule would really take effect as a practical matter.
germy
Corn dog lobby will surely object to this.
Elizabelle
Thank God. I cannot stand the Iowa caucuses. Retire its status. Retire its senior Senator.
Remember when Hillary Clinton was forced, in 2008, to confirm she actually would contest in the state? Rumors spread she might be planning to duck them. That far back, it was apparent Iowa was an outlier. (Grateful that Obama won the Iowa caucuses that year, but wholly understand how other candidates might have preferred to forego the whole ordeal.)
germy
Jeffro
This is excellent news, and Delaware has my vote! For such a small state (under 3 hours’ drive end to end), it has a lot of urban/suburban/rural diversity, farms and beaches, and small towns.
“Make the First State the Starting Gate” LOL
laura
@germy: Any/every mention of Iowa caucuses or the Iowa State Fair recreates the image of Michelle Bachman deep throating a corn dog. Cannot unsee.
Jeffro
@germy: Delaware has scrapple, which is actually worse for you than corn dogs, so there’s that.
Betty Cracker
Also, the Iowa party didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory in 2020. I feel bad for them because I know what it’s like to be a blue speck in a sea of red, but man, what a shit-show. That probably gave the party cover to make a serious run at yanking first in the nation status.
Elizabelle
Bound by law. Laws can be changed, corn dog people.
I don’t like caucuses, either. Makes it too hard for people to vote. Enough.
Baud
@germy:
Let me guess which party takes which position.
geg6
Both Iowa and New Hampshire should go to the back of the line. Fucking whitest white places on earth.
Baud
@geg6: NH at least holds a primary and has voted blue in presidential elections. But otherwise, yes.
germy
@laura:
Anonymous At Work
The BIGGER news about this is Democratic support for corn subsidies is about to drop precipitously. “Corn is King” only because Iowa goes first. Good riddance
EDIT: I meant for “corn plastic”, “high fructose corn syrup” and a myriad of corn alternative products created because of a glut of over-subsidized corn. Ethanol from sustainable agriculture is fine; switchgrass will probably have the advantage.
Nelle
@Elizabelle: we had just moved here in 2019. I enjoyed the whole craziness but still think it needs to be rotated or dropped. Caucuses irritate me. So many have legitimate reasons why they can’t show up on a cold winter night and spend hours trying to lure others to their candidate. Red rover, come over. Fun to see candidates up close but overall, it just feeds Iowans’ smug assurance that they are so special.
trollhattan
“When the guide said ‘difficult’ I guess it meant this” said the spouse, who had not believed said guide’s trail rating, as we entered the difficult portion of the hike.
Still, because it’s the beginning of spring it was a nice day, even though I could barely descend a flight of stairs afterwards. Plenty of wildflowers, views of over a hundred miles, not TOO much poison oak and we harvested no ticks that we know of.
Scott
Personally, I would rather they do something real radical and not have any primaries until May or June. That would really hose up the current system.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: LOL! I’ve bitten off more than I could chew like that a time or two. Kept telling myself “calling 911 is not an option!”
TaMara
@Elizabelle: Colorado changed their caucuses to regular old voting – but kept the caucuses. So we can all go vote in the primaries AND attend a caucus – but they are just for show and tradition (and may meet whatever criteria the law required – I honestly don’t know much about them, being an independent until Obama was elected – and completely anti-caucus after the 2016 shitshow).
Martin
You get more energy covering those fields in solar panels than you do turning corn into ethanol. Ethanol from corn is a scam. Hell, most of the corn industry is a scam. They should be growing more useful crops but growing anything that one guy with a John Deere can’t harvest 1000 acres of by himself would threaten Iowas whitest in the nation status.
It’s not that ethanol is necessarily a bad idea, but sugarcane is 7x better for producing it. Ethanol from corn is only viable if you subsidize the hell out of it which is what we do.
Iowa could produce more food, and better food, if they switched to some of the crops that California grows. It’s not like the US suddenly discovered carrots once the Central Valley was populated. But you need labor to grow carrots, or lettuce, or any of the other crops that we eat in this country. And Iowa is allergic to labor. Because labor is brown. Labor requires effort. Corn is easy.
WaterGirl
Shorter:
Dear Iowa,
You need not apply.
Love, the Democratic Party
Hoodie
@TaMara: From what I understand, the caucuses historically served as a means of party organizing in Iowa. That still can occur with the Colorado approach (I think some other states also do that), but might not generate as much interest. That said, there is no good reason to put Iowa first these days, irrespective of whether it’s a primary or a caucus. It actually might be better for Dems to caucus in states they normally do not win just to help build some party infrastructure. Iowa used to be a good state for Dems, but isn’t anymore, so leave it a caucus, just de-emphasize it. Switch to a primary when you have a big enough presence in the state.
Betty Cracker
Can’t find that article I read a while back arguing for Delaware, but here are the state’s demographics:
A lot more representative than Iowa’s, and it’s still a small state, which is crucial if you value the retail politics angle that gives insurgent candidates like Obama a shot. On the other hand, Delaware shares media markets with Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC, so competing there would be pricier.
Oh well. Other people are paid to figure this shit out. Whichever they pick will almost certainly be a better choice than Iowa.
Wapiti
@Martin: Amen.
I’d like to see us get rid of the sugar subsidies (including HFCS) in the US, and import more sugar from the Caribbean. Including Cuba. They have rainfall in the tropics; give them a cash crop to use it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’ve always felt like primaries should be in perpetual checkerboard rotation, max 15 states/territories per primary day over 5 primary days, geographically scattered.
Primary season to occur over a 120 day period.
Doug R
Isn’t passing a law that your state has the first caucus or primary unconstitutional? Speaks to equality of the vote.
David Fud
@Anonymous At Work: Completely agree with this. The time for subsidized inefficient liquid fuel substitutes is over. Bring on the batteries, or at least the ammonia-based fuels that can be created efficiently from renewable energy.
VeniceRiley
I truly hope this happens. I get sick of good ideas getting floated and going nowhere.
delk
Illinois
David Fud
Georgia isn’t as small, but it might be a good early candidate. It would help us get our electorate activated and it is a swing state. Lots of diversity. Southern for geographic diversity. Not so small as Delaware, granted, but it would be a good litmus test for who could get elected to national office, which is ultimately the point.
Martin
Democrats should simply rank the states by how fair their elections/districting is. Publish the metrics. If Iowa wants to go first, they can earn it.
Baud
@Martin:
The white supremacist states aren’t going to be influenced by the Dem primary calendar.
cain
@Scott: I like it.
I mean imagine the press waiting impatiently to report on something – the GOP would have already gotten someone and now it’ll just be hyperfocused starting in May or June. It’ll drive them crazy because they’d have to pull together a ton of information – it will also make it harder for dirty tricks.
Calouste
@geg6: Northern Ireland has got them beat. Because when people who were moving to Great Britain weren’t exactly going to settle in a region that was in the dumps economically and had a low-level civil war going on. So until the end of the Troubles, it was about 99.5% white.
Martin
@Baud: then they can go last, and everyone will know why they are last.
Baud
@Martin:
The problem with that is you end up diminishing the influence of Dem party members (often Southern blacks) simply because the happen to live in a white supremacist state. So you’re compounding the problem rather than acting against it.
Soprano2
@Martin: Based on the story I read in the WaPo yesterday about the drought in CA, they would be wise to do this. CA produces a lot of our food, but if this drought continues for a few more years a lot of that is going to go bye-bye.
Geminid
I heard a proposal for a Maryland/DC/Virginia primary, all three states voting on the same day. Not first, but early on. That might make for efficient campaigning.
Martin
@Baud: Yeah, good point.
joel hanes
As an Iowa native who has for thirty years watched the steady devolution of Iowa politics into performative Cleek’s Law Republicanism, I really hope that Iowa loses its first-in-the-nation habit.
Brachiator
Didn’t Obama win Iowa? Are they being punished for that?
I don’t much care. Iowa and New Hampshire being first was kinda like Groundhog Day. A tradition that didn’t mean much.
The proposed changes may make Democrats fight harder and spend more money early on.
BTW: Iowa has a small black community. Some Democrats and most of the media never visited.
jonas
Good. Do New Hampshire next. Also, primaries should begin in the late spring/early summer and they should be done in three months. This bullshit dragging things out over 8 months or something has got to stop (more than a year if you count all the media coverage of who is showing up in Iowa or NH six months before the caucuses, etc.). It means we’re always in campaign mode and always in politicking/posturing mode. That leaves a vanishingly small window to actually get anything done in Washington.
germy
Scout211
@WaterGirl:
My version:
Dear Iowa,
I grew up with you, but . . . WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU!?
You are dead to me. And, by the way, also to the Democratic Party! Ha Ha Ha.
The End.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Won’t those states not make the cut anyway because they’re not competitive in the general election? I’m thinking of a state like South Carolina here. I guess you could excise the ideological component to the qualifications altogether, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.
Peale
@Scott: Agree. One of the problems of Iowa is that both of its parties have conspired to lengthen the race coverage by coming up with all these “straw polls” and “traditions” that have only existed for 30 years (but the press likes to present as being around from time immemorial). “No candidate has placed higher than 3rd in the caucus who hasn’t stroked the summer sausage at Elis Meat Market at the annual Iowa City Processed Meat Festival since 1978. It’s what launched Pat Paulson’s career.
catclub
I do all my banking at the Post Office now. It is so easy.
Benw
I mean, the big blue states still have yonks of rural areas. It wouldn’t be crazy to start with CA or NY where candidates have to work small towns, big cities, and the burbs and there’s lots of diversity and then you get a sense of to whom our candidates appeal – a lot more info than Iowa or NH, which are kinda samey. Plus, the food is just way better in NYC or San Fran.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
There may be legitimate reasons why Dems in those states lose influence. But I don’t think punishing the Jim Crow majority in those states is a legitimate reason for leaving its victims with less influence.
jnfr
I hate caucuses and I love corn dogs but I won’t miss Iowa going first.
@TaMara:
I also attended the 2016 caucuses and swore never again!
Betty Cracker
Press Sec. Psaki just announced on Twitter that she tested positive for COVID-19 and won’t be accompanying POTUS to Europe. She says her symptoms are mild and that she met with Biden in a socially distant way a couple of times recently and he has tested negative.
Geminid
@Benw: I see that Governor Sisolak of Nevada just signed legislation that would make that state hold a primary before the New Hampshire or Iowa contests. I don’t know about the schedule, but I’m glad the state is stepping in to mandate a primary instead of a caucus. Generally, I think caucuses are a poor way to choose the stongest candidate for president or Congress. They are a throwback to the mid to late 20th century
Peale
@jnfr: The Koreans have now leapfrogged iowa in corn dog technology. It was a dying industry there anyway.
Gravenstone
Now this is funny to me, because during a holiday family visit, my stepfather (retired small farmer) was ranting about losing “good” farmland to solar farms. I just brushed him off, as I am prone to do when some variation of “we always used to…” comes up. But I’d be curious about approximate dollar values in electricity generated annually compared to say an average crop harvest value. Just to have a little something to refute him.
Baud
@Geminid:
Good. Very few caucuses left.
Villago Delenda Est
Idiots Out Walking Around.
jnfr
@Peale:
I’d love to try a Korean corn dog, especially if it came with BTS.
Kelly
Another vote for moving the whole damn primary/caucus calendar to springtime. No delegates count if elected before May maybe April. If we’re gonna change it do not enshrine a new first in the nation primary/caucus state. Shift it around every 4 years.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geminid: This will cause an escalation in the case of New Hampshire, which should also be relegated to a date well after California for its primary.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kelly: The Presidential nomination process is predicated on 18th Century transportation infrastructure. Screw this. Have primaries in August, nuke the conventions, and then a two month campaign.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think we’re talking about two different things that are functionally the same thing. Martin floated the idea of fair districting as a litmus test, and states that violate fair districting principles can be described as Jim Crow when they use gerrymandering to suppress black votes. But my point is if the state isn’t competitive in the general, it’s excluded anyway, and that seems fair to me. The Venn diagram of those two categories of states is nearly a circle, isn’t it? I think GA would be the rare exception, and it sure looks like it’s reached a tipping point realignment that is ongoing. Maybe I’m missing something?
The Lodger
@Martin: Well, Delaware certainly has no problem with congressional gerrymandering, I’ll admit that.
germy
@Betty Cracker:
Isn’t this her second time?
Kelly
This issue is being argued about in the Willamette Valley. I’m inclined to think until we’ve utilized most roof tops and parking lots it’s a poor use of cropland or greenspace.
brendancalling
@Jeffro: Scrapple tastes way better than any corndog I’ve ever had.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
No diners?
Martin
@Gravenstone: Here you go. https://www.freeingenergy.com/replace-farmland-farm-corn-ethanol-solar-panels/
I’ve seen this study done elsewhere with somewhat different numbers, but they all show solar consistently outperforming corn. This doesn’t even factor the amount of energy that goes into growing the corn, running the combine, producing the fertilizer, etc. Solar also has energy inputs, but they’re fixed.
Kelly
@Villago Delenda Est: A two month campaign like most democracies? Unpossible!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
The circle would be similar, but not the same. Michigan has bad districts I believe, but is competitive. Whatever overlap there might be between the two criteria, however, the criteria itself should be something we can support. And I don’t think we can support deinfluencing minority Dem voters in Jim Crow states because they are oppressed by Jim Crow 2.0.
geg6
@Martin:
Love that idea!
Been watching the insanity on redistricting going on next door in Ohio. Woah! Ours has been fairly uneventful considering the crazy MAGAs here. Not that there haven’t been controversies, mainly on the PA Supreme’s map for congressional and legislative districts, the map of which was challenged by the PA GQP at SCOTUS. SCOTUS refused to hear the case but sent it to a 3-judge federal panel that won’t hear the case until who knows when. So they are going with the new maps until told they can’t. The state legislative districts map was just approved yesterday by the PA Supremes.
At the national level, PA has lost one congressional seat due to the census. So we lost a GQP seat, giving us 8 GQP seats, 6 Dem seats and 3 highly competitive seats. A much better outcome than I would have predicted a year ago.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@trollhattan: Yeah, I tend to avoid trails called “Mountain Goat”.
I did do one difficult-ish trail I was proud of. It was in Harpers Ferry, a town of great strategic importance in the Civil War. When it was in Union hands, Lincoln came out to review the troops. I was reading various plaques about his visit as I climbed up the ridge overlooking the river. And I got to the point where Lincoln gave up and said OK, I’m sure (pant, pant) that everybody above this point is doing just fine, no need (pant, pant) to go any further.
Yay, I made it to the top when Lincoln couldn’t!
Of course, he was probably in top hat and full regalia.
The importance apparently was that you could control the rivers by dragging a few cannons up onto the ridge. But that meant you had to drag cannons up onto the ridge.
Unique uid
I’m not surprised, but I thought “no solar farms” was just a Michigan thing. We had a large system installed in my county, now the county commissioners changed zoned so they are only allowed by special permits. Five years ago wind turbines went the same way.
I was reading about people in NY researching combining ag with solar. If mounted an a foot or two higher, sheep seem to work. Chickens and some crops are also good.
persistentillusion
@TaMara: As a fellow Coloradan, caucus is where the stupidest people in the room yammer for two hours. Gradually, you begin to feel that humanity is doomed and then you leave, as you no longer care about your candidate or the election. Total waste of time, impossible to organize well and should have been ended completely.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kelly:
I might add that shopping malls are also a poor use of prime agricultural land; the Gateway Center in between Eugene and Springfield is an example of this.
Andrew
@laura: But she deep-throated the corn dog in a God-honoring way, of course.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: My HMMWV driver loved his job because my job involved going to high elevations to scout possible FM retransmission sites. He loved driving on “goat trails”.
Martin
@Kelly: It sorta is.
Put another way you really want solar on the buildings and parking lots because that’s where the power is needed. The closer to the demand, all else being equal, the better.
There’s another angle which is that partially covering crops can make the crops more productive by alternating sun/shade. But that’s incompatible with a big fucking John Deere. Much more compatible with manual farm work like we have in CA.
The final argument is that if you are covering fields which are producing ethanol, then covering the fields is directly removing a carbon emitter. That ground isn’t neutral, it’s harmful, and solar turns it positive. You can argue that they should grow other crops there, and I agree, but they’ve been able to make that choice at any point here, so there’s good reason to believe that it would never happen. See my comment above regarding labor.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Okay, that makes sense. I didn’t realize there were more states that are competitive and have bad districts.
Ken
Some people don’t consider that a drawback.
Besides, if you’re not willing to go out in January Iowa weather and mill about in a small room with ninety other people for three hours on a weeknight, maybe you shouldn’t be voting.
Sister Golden Bear
@Unique uid: Vastly different ecological system, but when I visited Biosphere in Tuscon, AZ a few years back, they were experimenting with planting stuff under mounted solar panels (similar to what’s done in parking lots).
Don’t remember specifically which crops, but the shade not only protected the plants from being burned by too much sun, but also lowered the ground temp by something like 10-20 degrees.
Not sure how scalable the approach was, but if I recall correctly, they were focused on market garden-type of crops (i.e. the stuff you see at farmers markets) that are grown on relatively small-scale farms anyway.
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin:
Real Men(tm) don’t farm arugula. //
JAFD
Speaking as someone who grew up on both sides of The Twelve-Mile Arc: Basic problem is that Delaware is split by the Chesapeake and Delaware Ship Canal. There aren’t many bridges across it – have to be high enough to clear tall masts. So think of the state as made up of Greater Wilmington and Lower Slower Delaware.
And Greater Wilmington is in the Philadelphia TV market – indeed, Channel 12 WHYY was originally licensed to Wilmington, still lists Wilmington/Philadelphia in station breaks, but its transmitter tower (‘Tower to the People’ in its fundraising campaign) is in the ‘antenna farm’ within the Philadelphia city limits
The Wilmington News-Journal was bought out by hedge fund, hollowed out, see
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist for details
Apologies for busting bubbles. If you ever get to visit The First State, would recommend the Hagley Museum, old DuPont black powder factory, on banks of Brandywine in NW corner of Wilmington, just off 202, if you’re interested in 19th century history and technology.
Note to Jeffro; Don’t deep-fry scrapple, and it’s not that bad for you
Ken
@Scott: @Kelly: @Villago Delenda Est: I think you’re all missing why it’s absolutely vital in a democracy to have a ten-month campaign season: Advertising revenues.
gene108
Delaware’s media market is Philly stations and Baltimore stations, so it’s not as cheap to advertise in on TV and radio as Iowa or New Hampshire.
I think the cost of media has been an issue in replacing Iowa and New Hampshire with smaller northeastern or mid-Atlantic states like Delaware, Maryland, or New Jersey.
Martin
@Unique uid: Yeah, there are a fair number of shade crops that work well under solar. A lot of root crops need very little direct sun and with the right placement of fixed panels can provide that sun while also giving you a substantial amount of solar. The problem is the harvesting – you have to do that by hand.
I would expect the Willamette valley to adapt to sheep or root crops a lot better than Iowa. Oregon at least has some decent access to migrant labor. Iowa has none. And the Willamette valley does grow a reasonably variety of crops that they aren’t so utterly monolithic in terms of what they can do. Iowa does four things – corn, soy, hogs, and chickens. And that’s it. They don’t even do cover crops. And they expect the universe to bend to their desires rather than adapt. They are some lazy motherfuckers.
Kelly
@Martin: Fairly common to see solar installations on big barns and machinery sheds. Occasionally see sheep pastured under solar. Never cattle which are apparently much more destructive to the equipment.
Sarah Taber has written extensively about how hard it is for other farm regions to match California on labor intensive crops. California farm workers are skilled laborers.
I have a high school friend that is a third generation Willamette Valley farmer that is planting lots of hazel nut trees. Highly mechanized and the hand work is done in the winter which is the off season for local farm labor. His family grew cannery vegetables for generations.
Betty Cracker
@gene108: True, but ad inventory has changed a lot. TV and radio are not the only games in town, and even within those categories, there’s streaming TV and non-terrestrial radio ad buys. I have no idea how that figures in to modern campaign media strategy — just noting the traditional media market ain’t what it used to be.
scav
Didn’t expect to ever say this. Improves On Walking Away.
ian
I propose a bumper-car derby process of nominating president candidates. Points to be accumulated by number of other candidates’ vehicles wrecked, length of time car still in operation, and amount of corporate sponsors willing to donate to advertising logos. All profits from ticket sales go to campaign funds.
Geminid
@Kelly: If I were King of the World I would decree that all Democratic primaries would be held Between March 1st and June 30. There would be a rough parity in the number of delegates selected each month.
Somehow, though, I don’t think the Empress of the Universe is going to call me over a relatively trivial Earthling problem. But if the Empress is lurking she should know that texts are better than calls for me.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
I think capping what candidates can spend on traditional media buys we would help even things out. The Party sets the rules, so they could try capping media buys.
westyny
@geg6: Idaho and Wyoming would like a word . . .
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Traditional newspapers are certainly dead. Terrestrial radio is still good, especially drive-time hours.I don’t know if the pandemic has affected this as work patterns change.
TV is expensive, but I am not sure how effective it is anymore. More and more, younger people are abandoning broadcast TV, whether it is via cable, streaming or digital broadcast.
A podcast about the parties going after the Latino vote claimed that in many areas, Democrats focus on GOTV ads close to elections, and use traditional media, while the GOP targets ads more often and use more social media. In polls, some Hispanics claim that they feel under-appreciated by Democrats.
This was not mentioned in the story, but I get the feeling in Southern California, both parties sometimes have problems getting the message to Hispanic voters in English and Spanish.
But this is a subset of the issue of getting the message out, and also getting feedback from voters.
I still have a land line and a phone answering machine. It gets clogged up with sales spam and election calls, none of which I ever listen to.
laura
@germy: Man, if we’re ever seated next to each other at a dinner party, the shit talk and shenanigans we could get up to.
Geminid
@Kelly: Speaking of hazel nut trees, I’ve read that the ground hazel nuts grow in is conducive for culturing truffles.
PJ
@Betty Cracker: DC media doesn’t reach into DE, unless you count beachgoers who carry the Post with them.
JustRuss
Also very compatible with grazing sheep…which there are a lot of in the Willamette Valley.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ken:
Alas, true. Which is why CREAM is death.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: Dang it. I just startled the cat out of a sound sleep!
Jeffro
Man, we need to get you some better corndogs! ;)
It’s less bad for you, true…but it’s not good!
I think the DE beaches are the best thing it has going for it. And if you’re a bicyclist, DE is awesome. Flatter than Kansas below the canal, I believe.
@gene108:
You have to wonder, though, in modern campaigns: TV ad buys are much less of a thing than they used to be, right? Isn’t it about targeted internet ads? I dunno. I see Betty noted this too.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Radio and billboards are good too. Commuters are a captive, bored audience.
Are you still sore from climbing Elliot’s Knob? I think I would be.
Kineslaw
@Kelly: One reason Iowa/NH/SC/Nevada go so early is the DNC and RNC want them to go before Texas, which has primaries for everything from county judge on up the first Tuesday in March. This year primaries were on March 1, which is ridiculous, and runoffs will be May 24.
Neither side thinks they can get Texas to switch dates, and Texas is a huge state geographically with 20 TV media markets, including numbers 5 & 8.
If Texas moved its primaries to May, it would allow the whole calendar to be shifted later.
Splitting Image
@Ken:
One thing which I think doesn’t get enough discussion is how news media have adapted to changing revenue streams over the past 10-20 years.
Revenue from non-political advertising has cratered over this time, especially from things like private newspaper classifieds, but the amount of money going into political campaigns, and being spent on advertising by those campaigns, has skyrocketed, especially since Citizens United.
They used to say that “all politics is local” because most news organizations made their money from local advertising: classifieds, display ads from local businesses, and local subscriptions.
Now the news companies break even or not depending on how much money they get from Charles Koch and the like, spent over a continuous four-year cycle. This is as important a development as Rupert Murdoch’s rise to news magnate, but I don’t think it gets talked about nearly as much. We usually talk about advertising in terms of whether or not it is likely to sway the viewer, but its real effect is often to sway the corporate policy of the entity which receives the money.
PaulWartenberg
If we’re going with a diverse state to start a primary, but it’s not going to be one of the big five – California, New York, Texas, Illinois, or Florida – I would recommend Hawaii, which IS officially the most diverse with a 36 percent Asian population over 22 percent White.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/slideshows/the-10-most-racially-diverse-states-in-the-us?slide=11
If not, next best would be New Jersey or Maryland.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I am all for removing Iowa’s first in nation status, but I definitely think geographic diversity is important. Even if we were going to stick with having a mid-western state, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, or Michigan would be much better choices than Iowa.
Mai Naem mobile
I don’t know much about Delaware except that its physically a small state. I don’t know much about its demographics. I do think Nevada should be number one. I don’t care if its a caucus or primary. I think Las Vegas which where the vast majority of the votes would come from is a nice blend of unionized, Hispanic, AA, asian and white voters.
JAFD
@PaulWartenberg: Problem is that 1/3 of NJ voters are in the Philadelphia TV market, 2/3 in the NYC market. Expensive place to campaign in.
Note how many NJ politicians of recent years are rich enough to self-finance much of their campaigns.