MIchigan is About To Mess Up the Primary Season

I am slowing going through my blogroll when I got to Campaign2008VictoryA . He is of course supporting Alaska Governor Sarah Palin in her bid to be on the GOP ticket. He has this news that the State of Michigan is about to move their primary up to January 15th!!!!

Therefore it is likely that Iowa and maybe NH and SC will move their elections up to December. Iowa is very likely to do so. I so wish the National Democratic party and the National Republican party could together and lay down the law here.

Often I hear, "Its not fair that Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first" from the average Joe on the street.It all sound like a pouting teenager. There are reasons why the Iowa, New Hampshire and now South Carolina system works.

(1) It gives everyone a chance. IF we go to a National Primary day it will be very unlikely that a Senator Brownback or a Governor Mike Huckabee or people like them will ever have a chance. The people that will be in the running are the people that have the money all lined up by the big backers two years before. Why? Because it will become a TV war that is expensive. DO we really want that

(2) Iowa and New Hampshire have a political culture where they take this seriously. That is they attend the events, they get involved, they pay attention. I remember when Louisiana moved up their primary early in 96. The turnout was horrible no one cared. How is that good for anything.

(3) This is retail politics par excellence. The next President of the United States is actually going to have sit in living rooms and do all sort of retail politics. That is good because Presidents don't come down from Heaven all wrapped up for the Oval Office. This retail politics is a part of interacting with the people and finding their own vision.

(4) Seeing how a person runs their campaign is important. How they can get an organization together is important. How they react in the numerous challenges that occur in acampaign cycle is important. It does give us some clue as to what kind of President they will be. In the the end this is a executive office. They have to govern. This cannot be replicated in what would become just a much of media buys on TV and cable. That is where we are headed if we upset the system.