Too soon to say

Published 10:56 am Thursday, January 5, 2012

Daily Herald editorial

Watching the results, and process, of Tuesday’s Iowa Republican presidential caucuses should provide all the evidence anyone needs that the presidential election system needs to change. It’s a situation where the sum of several individually good decisions has led to a system that makes little sense.

The most obvious flaw is the timing. Because it is important for Iowa’s image that it be the first state to hold a presidential caucus (or primary), Iowa voters caucus on the first Tuesday of the new year. That’s a date that sustains Iowa’s prestige, but which makes little sense when it comes to choosing a good presidential candidate. Choosing from a field of candidates 10 months before the election guarantees that it will be hard for any candidate to gain serious consideration unless he or she has been campaigning for months or years in advance.

Email newsletter signup

Which brings us to the individual decisions that candidates make to start touting themselves so far in advance of the election. Those decisions make sense because of the advanced caucuses and primaries, but place incredible burdens on candidates who must raise enough money to sustain years-long campaigns. It becomes a money-based race rather than one that is about ideas and character.

What makes more sense is a system whereby states caucus and hold primaries in, perhaps, late spring. Even that would mean longer campaigns than most Americans really want to endure. But it would be an improvement, a step in the right direction.

The key to these changes are in the hands of the major political parties, which can of course choose their candidates in any way they like. If they were to push for changes in the system, individual state legislatures would undoubtedly accommodate them by changing caucus and primary dates.

The first week of January is just too soon to be making decisions about candidates for a November election.