The National Primary

The days of waiting until the party conventions to find out who the party's nominees for president and vice president will be are over, and in fact, the entire nominating process may well be over within three weeks, according to Dick Morris:

Nineteen states or more, with half of America’s population, are moving to hold their presidential nominating primaries on Feb. 5, 2008, a mere three weeks after the Iowa caucuses and two weeks after the New Hampshire primary. In effect, we will now have a national primary and the presidential nominating season will last only three weeks from start to finish.

The effect of this gigantic sea change will be that whoever is the frontrunner in each party by the fall of 2007 will be virtually certain to win the nomination because only the frontrunner can possibly hope to amass enough money to compete in half the country at once. Nobody but the likely winner in each party will be able to compete at that level on Feb. 5.

Money will now be king. Nothing else will count very much. If you can afford to run a national campaign three weeks after the first caucus, you will win. If you can’t, you’re doomed. And the polling that designates a frontrunner now will do much to determine the nominee.

Big states, including California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, and North Carolina, are moving their primaries up to Feb. 5. They are going to be joined by a dozen smaller states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada (GOP only), New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah. With half of the country — these states have a combined population of 145 million — voting on Feb. 5, many other states are sure to join the move and vote on that early date. After all, which state legislature wants to consign its voters to political irrelevance by voting in April or May? Before we are done, we will have America’s first national primary on Feb. 5.

The problem with this quick and massive primary is that the winnowing process won't work the way it should. As Morris points out, if you're the frontrunner following New Hampshire, you're probably going to win the nomination. There just isn't time for developments to occur that could change the frontrunner's status. This could be very dangerous for the party. What if some sort of "Howard Dean Scream" moment occurs after the frontrunner has wrapped up most of the delegates? The party could be stuck with a sinking candidate, and have no way to get themselves out of the problem.

Maybe it's time to do away with the entire primary process and go back to the smoke-filled rooms where the party's elites can make the call. I'm not sure if that wouldn't be better than the system in place now.