. . . as opposed to having them all on the same day? It seems to me that that would simplify a lot of things.
Because states choose to schedule them, and it’s unlikely they’ll all spontaneously choose the same day. No justification is necessary.
But, couldn’t the parties demand it? “We’ll only listen to your delegates if you hold your primaries on such-and-such date.”
The most insurmountable problem I see is that having them all on the same day would cost the wannabes as much as a general election would, probably well over a billion for each person in the race. In the general election the parties can help the candidates; in a national primary they would be on their own. Barack Obama has just set a record by raising a million dollars a day in January. That would be a drop in the bucket if he had to try to advertise in every state at once. Most of the candidates have already hit serious cashflow problems even having to operate in the small states. People complain now of big money interests. What do you think would be the result if only people with access to billionaires could run? If your argument is to restrict spending, how does a candidate spread the message to all fifty states without the organization of an entire political party behind him or her?
Because torturing the candidates, then observing their reactions, reveals something of their character.
On this note, how did FDR, IKE, and other early 20th century presidents do it? Radio only? Newpaper ads? Imagine if the current folks had to do it that way…
People didn’t vote in primaries back then. The delegates to the nominating conventions were selected by the state party conventions, or through other, similar means. So the whole cycle leading up to the convention was a long affair of political machination, designed to achieve the goal of obtaining the commitment of sufficient delegates to win the nomination. That’s why nomination conventions almost always ended up having to take a series of votes to reach a nomination.
It makes a lot more sense for the candidates too. If the primaries are staggered they can hoof it out to each place, make a big impression, grab a bunch of votes and go to the next place. It actually sort of benefits us too because it gives them incentive to actually go out amongst the people and “understand” them in order to win their votes.
Even when there’s a day like…whatever day has 22(?) primaries going on, they can at least focus on less than 50 places at once.
They could. But if some state legislatures declined to comply, then the party in those states would have to hold caucuses instead. Some people feel that caucuses are less representative than primaries and tend to result in wins for more extremist candidates.
In addition, the parties see advantages in staggered primaries and caucuses, for the reasons others have posted.
Every convention would be a brokered one almost certainly. If we had a nationwide primary this year, we would have surely had something like McCain 25%, Romney 20%, Guiliani 20%, Huckabee 18%, etc. so that no candidate had a majority and that the “smoke filled rooms” of the convention would choose the nominee. The current system lets voters learn about the candidates and reach consensus…
It’s a lot easier on the campaign contributers, as well.
With the primaries spread out, they don’t have to drop their entire contribution on a candidate without some kind of indication on whether or not a candidate actually appeals to voters. They can driblle out a little, then, if necessary, put the rest of their dough on someone else.
(For example, some big time doners might have been planning on backing Guiliani, and indeed showed up to a couple of his fund raisers. But now that he is out, whatever they have left over can go to the “next best choice”, for them.)
Well, the drawn out primary process does seem to be separating the wheat from the chaff. Seeing candidates like Biden, Kucinich, Thompson, even Edwards and Guiliani fall by the wayside is just part of the process.
The problem with staggered primaries is that earlier states have much more influence than later ones. Is that a bigger problem than the problems of a national primary? The parties don’t seem to think so.
The DNC has already done that. Florida and Michigan violated the DNC rules for primary dates and were stripped of their delegates. Of course, Saint Hillary won in those states and she wants them restored.
And in Michigan, even though she was the only nominal person on the ballot, she only won by 15% of the net vote! The final tally was Clinton 55%, Non-committed 40% (the balance to the non-serious bozos).