Why Iowa?

http://whyiowa.org/

With all the debate about scheduling and if a candidate loses the first three primaries their chances of making a comeback are almost nil, why does Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina get to choose every 4 years? Shouldn't a different set of three states get a chance to go first? Should it be a lottery based system where they don't know what states it will be until December? Should the democrats pick Oregon, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Mexico to get a 'real' democrat instead of the one that can win in the early (less liberal) primary states.

Here is a calendar for 2012 and they have some good historical maps:
http://frontloading.blogspot.com/p/2012-presidential-primary-calendar_26.html

 

I think the primary system is completely broken. Every state has a different system (different rules, different procedures, etc.) Some would say "states rights!", but I believe a federal election should have a unified set of rules. In fact, I think we should just have one "Super Tuesday" or whatever where all 50 states hold their primaries simultaneously. There is no reason (outside of "tradition", the dirtiest of words) to keep the system the way it is right now

 

i agree it should all happen on one day. i suppose it wasn't as big of a problem back in the day but as it stands now the few early states get to decide the outcome of elections which isn't really giving every state an equal say.

 

If we took Iowa out of first primary position we could also get rid of all the absurd industrial farming subsidies that are kept in place by pandering politicians.

 

Let them have it. What else does Iowa have?

Oh, right, that.

I would love a nationwide super Tuesday that's a Federal holiday (wouldn't it be nice if it were a paid vacation day for everyone from the executives down to the hourly folks at your local stores?) to see the clusterfuck that would be national primaries.

 

I think the states should retain the rights to set up their primaries internally however they see fit. Letting them set the date, though, does subvert the influence of those who choose to have their primaries later. Although if we're going to talk about timing, the entire campaign season is just too long. We need to condense the whole thing into 90 days or less so that our representatives can spend more time, you know, actually doing the jobs they were elected to do.

I'm thinking all primaries in the first full week of September, A secondary primary the first week in October (between the top two candidates in each party) and then the real deal come November.