As a total of 17 candidates (so far) for the presidency in 2008 trudge their way toward the starting gate in January, in what arguably will be the most frenetic competition ever, two men who have run and lost deserve to be listened to on what needs to be done to rescue a disastrous primary-election process.
It?s too late to do anything about the impending procedural train wreck next year, in which 20 or more states have rushed to the front of the 2008 calendar with their primary and caucus elections, seeking political influence, publicity and profit.
The stampede, known in the political world as front-loading, has put a huge premium on unprecedentedly early fund-raising to sustain candidates through the early epidemic of state contests in California, New York and other money-guzzlers.
But Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., a loser in 1996 and 2000, and Democrat-turned-Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, who lost as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2000 and then got nowhere as a presidential candidate in 2004, hope to see there isn?t a repetition of the anticipated 2008 chaos in 2012. A freshman, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., has joined them.
They are sponsoring legislation with a sensible objective that cool heads in both parties have often talked about but done nothing tangible to achieve. They want a regional, spaced-out schedule over a four-month period from March to June in 2012 and succeeding presidential election years, and it probably will take them at least four years to get it, if at all.
The plan would create primary or caucus dates each month in the East, Midwest, South and West, taking turns going first every four years, while reverting to the traditional pre-2008 practice of initiating selection of delegates for the party national conventions with the Iowa caucuses and then the New Hampshire primary.
The frenetic front-loading has already done political violence for 2008 to the tradition of giving Iowa and New Hampshire a head start in the process. Two other small states, Nevada and South Carolina, have been added to the early mix, and probably Florida as well. But the role of Iowa and New Hampshire is so ingrained that the key 2008 candidates have been focusing on them anyway.
There is substantial practical reason for maintaining the old system of letting Iowa and New Hampshire lead the way. Voters there have been conditioned to take their selection responsibility seriously in ideal settings for retail campaigning, in which the candidates are obliged to spend a lot of personal time with voters.
For all the front-loading of larger states that will follow the smaller ones kicking off the 2008 race, most of the candidates are continuing to knock on Iowa and New Hampshire front doors, hoping to come out of the starting gate with “momentum.”
The phrase has been much maligned, because it has not always worked forthe Iowa and New Hampshire winners. Ask George H.W. Bush, who bragged about having “Big Mo” after beating Ronald Reagan in Iowa in 1980, or John McCain, who soundly beat George W. in New Hampshire in 2000, and wound up losers.
This year, one Democratic hopeful, former Sen. John Edwards, who ran a surprising second in Iowa in 2004 and won a place on his party?s ticket as Al Gore?s running mate, is staking much on winning Iowa, where he has been a constant presence all this year. Edwards had been running ahead in the Des Moines Register poll, but a Washington Post/ABC News poll just out has rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton now in a virtual three-way tie with him there.
It must be noted that the tide runs against the three senators who want to reverse the front-loading calamity and restore Iowa and New Hamphire?s clear kickoff role in the process. But it may be that the predicted train wreck ahead, producing both major parties? nominees by early February, will leave all the candidates financially and physically exhausted, emphatically making the proponents? case for reform by 2012.
Jules Witcover, a Baltimore Examiner columnist, is syndicated by Tribune Media Services. He has covered national affairs from Washington for more than 50 years and is the author of 11 books, and co-author of five others, on American politics and history.
