Editorial: Change Back the Primary
September 17th, 2007
Oh well. It really was a decent idea.
Back in April, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed legislation which shifted the 2008 New York presidential primary from March 4 to Feb. 5. Spitzer argued that moving the date “will help secure New York’s large and diverse population an influential voice in selecting the 2008 presidential nominees.”
There was sense in our leaders trying to better position the state’s primary voters, not to mention the logic behind pushing the date earlier to give a leg up to our hometown frontrunners, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R).
But then California moved its primary to February 5. And so did Arizona, and North Carolina and Connecticut and Oregon and a host of other states. In total, 23 states are planning to pick their delegates more than a week before they pick their valentines. More may join them, and Michigan is already talking about voting in January.
Now, rather than making a difference, New York may well get lost in the mix. Of the combined 2,189 Democratic convention delegates which will be handed out based on each state’s primary results that day, only 280 will come from New York. Though the same number of Republican primaries are scheduled, the GOP has fewer convention delegates overall, leaving only 101 from New York out of a total of 1,194. And that does not even factor in the six other states which will have had their primaries or caucuses before then.
So much for having a voice.
While New York’s will be the second largest group of delegates for both parties, ours will constitute only about a tenth of the super-duper Tuesday delegates.
What to do now? We could follow Florida’s lead, and move our primary further back, into January, stern warnings from the parties’ national committees be damned. We could continue this bizarre and democratically-dangerous backward leapfrogging and put our primary even earlier. December is wide open. October and November, too.
Or New York could do something different, and put the primary back to March 4, or at least a week or two later than Feb. 5. Given the mess national nominating has so quickly become, this could do the country a great service. Leading by example, we could help reestablish the premium on consideration in our political process, rather than the caricature of democracy the “me first” primary stampede embodies.
We could help make the point that New York should be considered the American microcosm. Iowa and South Carolina and all the rest have nothing on New York when it comes to size and diversity representative of our nation as a whole.
As the frontrunner status of Clinton and Giuliani in part demonstrates, the presidential candidates who could be appealing to a majority of New Yorkers are precisely the presidential candidates who could be found appealing nationwide. Urban or rural, native or immigrant, rich or poor, highly educated or vocationally trained, New York is home to every kind of voter in America. And the major concerns of our state—economic redevelopment, mass transportation, sustainability, homeland security, immigration, public schools, health care and population growth—are already the major topics of the campaigns, and are sure to be very much on the mind of the next president.
And New York could still have clout with a later primary. Yes, the race by then may be down to a two-way contest for each party. But—especially if the primary races are the close contests some expect them to be—at least we will be able to throw the nomination to the best qualified candidate who remains.
Either way, New York’s primary voters are not likely to have a major impact on picking the Republican and Democratic nominees for 2008. But we could set an example for the nation by taking a stand against the frontloaded primary calendar which essentially puts the premium on money and name recognition over policy and substance. By doing this, we could call more attention to ourselves than being one of 23 on Feb. 5 ever could.
Clearly, America needs to rethink its whole primary process. Hopefully that will happen once the dust of the 2008 presidential election has settled. In the meantime, though, the states which contributed to the current mess could do their part to help clean some of it up again.
As with just about everything, there is no better place to start than New York.
------------------
Editor’s note:
We welcome letters to the editor.
All letters must be identified with the author’s full name and, for verification, phone number. Anonymous letters will not be published.
Substantive letters addressing politics and policy will receive top priority.
Submit your letters by email to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com, or contact our staff writers directly with the email addresses at the ends of their articles.
Back in April, Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed legislation which shifted the 2008 New York presidential primary from March 4 to Feb. 5. Spitzer argued that moving the date “will help secure New York’s large and diverse population an influential voice in selecting the 2008 presidential nominees.”
There was sense in our leaders trying to better position the state’s primary voters, not to mention the logic behind pushing the date earlier to give a leg up to our hometown frontrunners, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) and former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (R).
But then California moved its primary to February 5. And so did Arizona, and North Carolina and Connecticut and Oregon and a host of other states. In total, 23 states are planning to pick their delegates more than a week before they pick their valentines. More may join them, and Michigan is already talking about voting in January.
Now, rather than making a difference, New York may well get lost in the mix. Of the combined 2,189 Democratic convention delegates which will be handed out based on each state’s primary results that day, only 280 will come from New York. Though the same number of Republican primaries are scheduled, the GOP has fewer convention delegates overall, leaving only 101 from New York out of a total of 1,194. And that does not even factor in the six other states which will have had their primaries or caucuses before then.
So much for having a voice.
While New York’s will be the second largest group of delegates for both parties, ours will constitute only about a tenth of the super-duper Tuesday delegates.
What to do now? We could follow Florida’s lead, and move our primary further back, into January, stern warnings from the parties’ national committees be damned. We could continue this bizarre and democratically-dangerous backward leapfrogging and put our primary even earlier. December is wide open. October and November, too.
Or New York could do something different, and put the primary back to March 4, or at least a week or two later than Feb. 5. Given the mess national nominating has so quickly become, this could do the country a great service. Leading by example, we could help reestablish the premium on consideration in our political process, rather than the caricature of democracy the “me first” primary stampede embodies.
We could help make the point that New York should be considered the American microcosm. Iowa and South Carolina and all the rest have nothing on New York when it comes to size and diversity representative of our nation as a whole.
As the frontrunner status of Clinton and Giuliani in part demonstrates, the presidential candidates who could be appealing to a majority of New Yorkers are precisely the presidential candidates who could be found appealing nationwide. Urban or rural, native or immigrant, rich or poor, highly educated or vocationally trained, New York is home to every kind of voter in America. And the major concerns of our state—economic redevelopment, mass transportation, sustainability, homeland security, immigration, public schools, health care and population growth—are already the major topics of the campaigns, and are sure to be very much on the mind of the next president.
And New York could still have clout with a later primary. Yes, the race by then may be down to a two-way contest for each party. But—especially if the primary races are the close contests some expect them to be—at least we will be able to throw the nomination to the best qualified candidate who remains.
Either way, New York’s primary voters are not likely to have a major impact on picking the Republican and Democratic nominees for 2008. But we could set an example for the nation by taking a stand against the frontloaded primary calendar which essentially puts the premium on money and name recognition over policy and substance. By doing this, we could call more attention to ourselves than being one of 23 on Feb. 5 ever could.
Clearly, America needs to rethink its whole primary process. Hopefully that will happen once the dust of the 2008 presidential election has settled. In the meantime, though, the states which contributed to the current mess could do their part to help clean some of it up again.
As with just about everything, there is no better place to start than New York.
------------------
Editor’s note:
We welcome letters to the editor.
All letters must be identified with the author’s full name and, for verification, phone number. Anonymous letters will not be published.
Substantive letters addressing politics and policy will receive top priority.
Submit your letters by email to cityhall@manhattanmedia.com, or contact our staff writers directly with the email addresses at the ends of their articles.
