Letter to the Editor—Political Primaries
A political primary is a preliminary election in which the registered voters
of a political party nominate candidates for office. The key word here is
preliminary. The current system allows small states such as Iowa and New
Hampshire {assisted by the media} to award front-runner status to the
victorious candidate. From there the candidates travel a path determined by
which states wants to “leap frog” the other by moving up their primary
dates. Candidates are whisked across the country without any real ability to
distinguish regional issues from national issues. Consequently, party
platforms are determined by a make-it-up-as-you-go approach. If the primary
process were organized on a regional basis, candidates would be able to
study the regional issues, campaign to confirm those issues and then receive
votes based on the solutions they propose. A regional approach would also
prevent a premature selection of a front runner because success in one
region certainly would not guarantee success in the next region. This would
also further validate the process because each state would still have a say
all the way down to the end. Finally, the number of delegates awarded in
each state should be determined by the percentage of votes won by each
candidate.
Accordingly, the political primaries should occur between January and June
of each presidential election year. Each of the six regions would be
assigned a particular month. A lottery held in June of the previous year
would determine which month each region holds its primaries. An example
illustrates the format:
January
Southern (8):
AL, AR. KY, LA, MS, TN, VA, WV
February
Southwestern (9):
AZ, CA, CO, HI, NV, NM, OK, TX, UT
March
Atlantic (8):
DE, DC, FL, GA, MD, NJ, NC, SC
April
New England (8):
CT, ME, MA, NH, NY, PA, RI, VT,
May
Northwestern (9):
AK, ID, KS, MT, ND, OR, SD, WA, WY
June
Middle West (9):
IL, IA, IN, MI, MN, MO, NE, OH, WI
Joe Bialek
4233 River Ridge Drive
Cleveland, OH 44109
216-744-8352
