Is having the publicity and resulting influence on future state primaries really that important to any particular state? Hell, with primaries and caucuses now being scheduled in January for a November general election, I expect that in four years we’ll see primaries scheduled in December of the preceeding year if that’s even legally possible. But at least for the Republican convention, delegates from the states that hold these ridiculously early primaries will not be permitted to vote at the convention. Is it just the bragging rights and knowing that your state may have influenced other upcoming primaries decisions? Is it worth it to not have your delegates count?
Am I missing someting?
I personally think it’s all ridiculous and that primaries should not be valid if they are more than 6 months prior to a general election. That would mean the first primaries wouldn’t happen until early May.
Early primaries, for better or worse, do more to decide who the candidates will be. It gives the early primary states the ability to knock out candidates who need wins to move on, or to eliminate front runners by showing they can’t win votes. The first states have their issues brought center stage and all candidates pander to them. The real question is why would any state wait until their primary means nothing? No one will spend money in their state to campaign or pander to their issues because by then the nominee has been decided.
Well, the Republican rule is that you lose half your delegates if you move the date up before a certain point. Florida probably figures that having half its delegates count is better than having none of its delegates be of any importance if they wait and the nominee is already essentially decided.
The Democrat rule is that you lose all your delegates, but they don’t enforce that rule anyway, so it doesn’t matter on that side.
Money is always the answer. The early primaries bring in tens of millions of dollars over the later ones. And they garner tens of millions in media attention. As long as the parties don’t enforce the loss of delegates, there are no penalties but huge gains. People have been complaining about this for decades but nothing real has ever happened to stop it. And nothing is likely to for any foreseeable future.
It’s not that tough to see. Imagine a group of 9 people are trying to decide where to eat by voting, but the first person’s vote only counts as 1/2 of a vote.
Start with simple mathematics:
You’re still better off voting first and making your choice one of the ‘options’ in almost any scenario imaginable. Most likely people will decide between 2 different ‘likely’ options, so either it splits down the middle and it doesn’t matter (4.5 vs 4), you choice gets blown out of the water and a whole ‘vote’ wouldn’t have made a difference (8 vs .5), or you sway everyone from the get go and you ‘decided’ where everyone ate dinner (vice versa). If you were the last to go, people might not have even been aware that you were going to choose what you chose.
Now mix in sociology:
People are notorious ‘followers’ of someone who claims to be a ‘leader’. It doesn’t matter whether they actually have any qualifications to lead, or even if they have the best interest of the group overall in mind (see every religion, cult, gang, ponzi scheme, etc) simply because everyone hates being the odd one out. So usually people will just fall in line behind whoever goes first. This is why Iowa and New Hampshire get their panties in a bunch about being “First”.
Add a little biology in there:
Say the person who goes votes first happens to be a stunning member of the preferred sex. Even if they vote for the “All-you-can-eat Lutefisk Buffet”, you’ll still have several fools who happily follow their suggestion because they think kissing ass is a surefire way of getting lucky. This explains why ‘sexy’ states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania want to go sooner. They know they swing elections, so does everyone else, and they like to use their sex appeal to coerce everyone into giving them what they want. A since humans have notoriously short memories, they won’t care that following Florida last week just earned them a one way ticket on the McCain train to spanktown. “This week is gonna be totally different- she’s really into me this time!”
AIUI, the actual convention doesn’t mean much. They vote and all, but the decision is known in advance. So, as others have said - having your state make its decision early (even if they ended up with no votes at all) has much more affect than actually having votes at the convention. People will remember that Cain won Florida and that will affect their votes much more than any delegate count (otherwise, why would anyone care about New Hampshire and its presumably paltry delegate count?).
Does the 1/2 vote thing only count for the Presidential nomimation? I think that they vote on other stuff at the convention (approve the platform, at any rate?). Are the states losing votes on any other stuff?
The amount of money dropped into an early presidential primary state is staggering. Commercials, events, transportation - it all adds up. Getting all that money for the small price of maybe having your delegate count decreased (an effect hugely made up for by the influence your result will have on the national narrative) is an obvious call.
Once upon a time, the conventions really were meaningful, and the nominees were often the result of back-room politicking at the convention itself. But, it’s been at least 30 years, if not longer, since a nomination wasn’t sewn up well before the convention – the last one which I can think of was the 1976 GOP nomination, which was still in doubt between Ford and Reagan going into the convention.
Right now I’m failing to find a cite, but IIRC the parties have threatened to punish delegations for stuff like this before, and then not followed through. It’s possible the state Republicans see the threat as a bluff.
I’ve often thought, and somone suggested it in another thread, that they should group the states into sets of regional primaries with a pre-defined rotation schedule so a state would know they are in the last primary in 2012 but in the first one in 2016 and the third in 2020, etc.
Fairness would abound, the regional concept would allow candidates to focus their efforts, it will never work.
You could even see a southern governor deciding to wait to run until next time when the southern regional will be first.
How many regions? I don’t think many pols will put off running if their region doesn’t lead off for another 16 or 20 years.
The time scale is the problem. The wait is going to be too king for everybody to patiently wait their turn. Northeast, Midwest, West, Southwest, Deep South, etc…
Funnily enough, California has moved their primary back to June 5. The reasoning, apparently, is that California is too big to ignore no matter when they actually vote, and it sets them up to be critically important in the event of a closely contested primary.
That puts the Iowa Caucus aout 7 days before the previous election (by state law Iowa has to be 8 days before anyone else). Do you really want two election cycles running at the same time?
Yep. Party leaders are afraid of alienating the people who voted in the early primary. It’s an idle threat.
The current system creates a significant risk of a blizzard or two affecting the outcome. Democrats might hope for Iowa and New Hampshire blizzards so as to give the impression (perhaps rightly) of strange weather resulting in a strange GOP candidate.
In Florida’s case, it was both the money and the influence. The delegates don’t really matter. During this discussion, one of the Republicans on the data selection committee did make a great point though. Taxpayers pay for these elections, why should the parties be allowed to set the rules? If they want to make the rules about when we can have our primary, then they should pay for it.
The Democrats have responded by essentially doing just that. The primary vote will be non-binding and the actual Florida delegation vote will be held at a caucus after the national party imposed deadline. Of course, it will be mere coincidence that the caucus will come to the same result as the public primary vote…