The Primary Problem

Let’s start with the primaries and caucuses. For decades they lasted from late January or early February to the first Tuesday in June. But in 2008, the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, will be held in early January and what amounts to the final day–with 20-plus primaries–occurs on February 5. That means the primary season has shrunk to four weeks from four months.

What’s wrong with that? Defenders say it merely causes active campaigning–speeches and rallies and televised debates and ceaseless polling–to begin earlier. And indeed all that did begin earlier in this presidential cycle.

But the problem is not whether campaigns could adjust to the new schedule. The problem is voters and whether they have the time or inclination to pay serious attention to the candidates and the race. My sense is some are attentive–the junkies, the obsessed–but most aren’t.

The longstanding practice of voters has been to learn just enough about candidates (and no more) to be at least minimally informed before voting. The cue for them has always been the approach of election day. That’s when they start checking out the candidates.

Voters in the handful of early primary states have always seen plenty of the candidates, especially in person. Under the old system, as elections occurred in these early states, voters in states with later contests would start to focus on the race. Actual voting with real results would stir their interest. Then they’d have lots of time–months even–to watch the campaign and judge the candidates. But in 2008, they won’t.

Just as important, the candidates were tested on their reaction to winning or losing in the primaries. How they reacted was revealing. In 1980, George H.W. Bush was giddy after defeating Ronald Reagan in the Iowa caucuses. He went on to lose to Reagan. In 1984, Walter Mondale hunkered down when Gary Hart whipped him in the New Hampshire primary and wound up beating Hart. Both Reagan and Mondale showed their political skill and tenacity under pressure and potential for leadership.

Now, there won’t be time for the candidates to evolve, and a valuable window into their strengths and weaknesses will be lost. And of course voters in the Feb. 5 primaries will get only rare glimpses of the candidates in person. They will know less when they vote, if they’re spurred to vote at all.

One more thing about the primaries. When they’re stretched out for months, a moment arrives when the race comes down to two or three candidates. The Kuciniches are gone. Voters can see the real contenders, week after week, campaigning directly against each other, and can size them up judiciously. In the 2008 cycle, voters won’t be able to do that.

My concern about the plethora of candidates is that many of them haven’t a chance of winning their party’s nomination. They clutter up the race. They turn debates into uninformative cattle shows. A miracle couldn’t put them in the White House in January 2009. And they know it. But like all politicians, they crave attention, and even a frivolous presidential candidacy attracts the media.

Of the 16 candidates–8 Republicans, 8 Democrats–three are House members who haven’t announced their retirement from Congress: Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republicans Ron Paul and Tom Tancredo. They’re running for president now, I believe, with the full expectation of dropping out of the race early next year and announcing their intention of seeking re-election to the House. And no doubt they’ll be re-elected. They have safe seats.

One House member who’s running for president, Republican Duncan Hunter, has done the honorable thing and said he’ll retire from the House. Hunter, by the way, has won several straw polls, the biggest at the Texas Republican convention, and has campaigned impressively as a hawk on national security and illegal immigration. He’s a real candidate, though he lacks money and a large campaign team.

Then there are candidates with no identifiable body of supporters who are running on ego. Take Democrat Mike Gravel, a former senator from Alaska. He’s a liberal blowhard who adds nothing to the race. Yet real candidates are forced to share time with him in the ubiquitous debates. For some reason, the Washington Post put Gravel on the cover of its Sunday magazine, no doubt fueling his ego all the more.

There’s another category: serious people who aren’t serious candidates. I’d put Republican Senator Sam Brownback and Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Biden in this category. They have Senate seats to cushion the fall when their presidential dreams dissolve, as they’re bound to.

I haven’t mentioned Republican Mike Huckabee, the ex-governor of Arkansas, and Democrat Bill Richardson, the current governor of New Mexico. They’re the longest of long shorts, but they’re far from being inconsequential candidates. They belong as presidential candidates, but just barely.

As for debates, a few are fine. You don’t learn much from them, but one in Iowa and another in New Hampshire and two or three more would do no harm. Sometimes debates are fun to watch, and sometimes the clashes among the candidates are significant. But not often.

Forcing presidential candidates to take part in debate after debate achieves little. The truth is we learn more about candidates from their campaigning than we do from their debating. Just this week, we got a better idea about a Hillary Clinton presidency from the unveiling of her health care plan than we have from the sum total of her sound bites in the debates. Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, was more instructive than his debate performances.

Debates among the three or four serious candidates in each party might on occasion be worthwhile. But debates among eight candidates, each one guaranteed time to sound off, are mostly tiresome.

We’ve lost a lot as citizens and voters as the primary season has become a sprint rather than a marathon. Returning to the old system may be impossible. But there’s one very good reason for trying to do just that: It worked better.

Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.