4 Comments
User's avatar
тна Return to thread
Jeff Hall's avatar

This is why we need to get rid of the insanity of the state by state primaries. We need a national approach run in August. Rank choice voting to select the candidates for every party. Once they are selected, then on to November. Do it all in 90 days so that we don't have to put up with this stupid BS every month.

Expand full comment
E2's avatar

Without state-by-state primaries, you shut out candidates who don't have a national profile to start with.

Expand full comment
Jeff Hall's avatar

With my approach, wouldn't you give them a better platform by not having them have to travel to every state to make that name? Everything is online today. Seems to me that it would be a lot easier to get into the fray without all that cost.

Expand full comment
E2's avatar

Online campaigns support and expand in-person campaigns. For the most part I think the candidates still have to get out there, and the less-known they are the more they have to get out. Funding an in-person campaign in a few smaller states is a completely different proposition than competing for the big voter/delegate piles right out of the gate. The lesser-known candidate hopes that a strong showing in an early state brings the media and the money required to ramp up to a campaign in big states.

The structural problems with our primaries are the favoritism toward the same few early states (not that they're not "representative," just that they're the same); and, the favoritism toward first-place finishers in multi-candidate fields. Ranked or scored ballots would help with the latter.

Expand full comment