The one advantage, I think, of beginning the nomination process in small states is that relatively poorly-funded candidates can (in theory) still have a shot. A national primary day would make it almost impossible for outsiders to campaign successfully.

At the same time, as a former resident of NY, Ohio, California and Washington, DC, I've always felt the primary process does sell out urban areas and the majority of the US population. [NB: I now live in Iowa and will be caucusing tonight for Kucinich, and then Edwards].

One alternative would be to hold, say, 4 primaries on the same day. The states could be, say, Rhode Island, Louisiana, Illinois and Washington: a fairly wide range of geographic areas, demographics, etc. Even an Illinois-only first primary might be good (urban northeast, rural remainder of state).

The important precondition, of course, would be money -- NO private funding or fundraising. Let any candidate who can get, say, 50,000 signatures in a given state be giving federal funds (not federal matching funds) to support his/her campaign in that state (e.g.: $10 million per state, no matter who you are). If everybody started on a level playing field, then you could fairly hold a number of primaries in a range of states at the same time. This would be more rational and fairer than the current system, but, of course [adopt bloviated tone of fat white male pundit]: "WE CAN'T ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO LEVEL THE ECONOMIC PLAYING FIELD, EVEN FOR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES! THAT WOULD BE SOCIALISM!"

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Just looking at the way it's been covered in the media, you'd think that Iowa was it's own country and this is their election. I know what's going on, cause I've grown up here in the US, but for anyone not aware of the process, it must be confusing. The way they've framed it was just like election night. So I can't wait to find out who the next president of Iowa will be!

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...of a government that represents 300M people, with a budget of ~2.5 trillion dollars, the preeminent military force in the world, and holder of enough nuclear weapons to contribute 1/3 to 1/2 of the explosions necessary to destroy all mammalian life on the planet 23-27 (depending on how often the dead survivors target New Guinea) times over?

Could there be any better way than running a popularity contest in two smallish-to-middling states?

Gee. I dunno. Doesn't NH have a constitutional decree declaring themselves The Vetting State? I'm all for state's autonomy where appropriate, but this is a *cough, cough* federal election.

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While I agree that this is a strange way to do it, Iowa and New Hampshire residents tout their extraordinary attention paid to candidates and the issues. I would like to see stats on that better informed claim, but if they really are better informed than the rest of the country, then why not let them guide the choice?

However, if they really are better informed and can spot fakes, why is Hillary Clinton doing so well?

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and other electoral reforms to level the playing field.
The Democratic and Republican caucus system is ridiculous.
The TV pundits and talking heads are reporting as if this one dinky state with a very particular culture is the deciding factor for the entire election. Based on these results, well perhaps combined with New Hampshire, candidates will decide their fates, perhaps prematurely. It's silly the broad statements made after one dustup.

I agree with the suggestion that there be a same day, 50 state primary combine with a certain amount of public financing and guaranteed television but believe it should be carried out using IRV, as well as elections in general. The two party monopoly is such a hindrance to progress in this day and age. It's outlived its usefulness, if it ever had any to begin with.

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It's obvious. Not only would this be more fair to everyone throughout the country, it would make voter fraud shenanigans harder to implement.

Like Republicans who were claiming to turn Democrat showing up to caucus for Obama. Any followup to see which of these folks actually do switch parties?

Of course not. Rove's genius, at it again.

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Read the Federalist Papers, the Founding Fathers thought democracy was the worst form of government because they made the common Enlightenment assumption (shared by Marxists and libertarians) that people were rational and would vote their own interests, and hence redistribute the property of society's richest class. That is why they wrote the Constitution and attending laws in such a way as only about 7% of the population could even vote in the first presidential election (free, white, propertied male adults). There were several other breaks to popular will being expressed in the political arena written in to the Constitution, such as the Electoral College and the indirect election of the Senate by state legislatures (since repealed). However the franchise was gradually extended when the true stakeholders of the society (the rich, who have always dominated political discourse) realized that you could, indeed, fool most of the people most of the time, a task made much easier by corporate domination of the mass media, in particular TV. Still, these 18th century constitutional devices like the Electoral College and single member constituency elections serve the ruling class well, so don't expect there to be any debate about changing them any time soon.

Even so, there is very strong evidence that the Republicans stole both of the last two presidential elections with wide spread disenfranchisement of progressive constituencies and outright electronic voting machine fraud. In 2004, for instance, in 11 states the exit polls predicted Kerry the winner while Bush ended up getting all the electoral votes for those states. Exit polling had NEVER predicted the wrong outcome of an election before 2000, and probably Diebold & co. switched millions of votes in 2004. Yet the Democrats emitted not a whimper, proving they were more the Republican's collaborators than competitors. Sure, the Democratic party lost both houses and the presidency in 2004, but had never done better (by some measures they outspent the Republicans, hence having plenty of cash to spread around to their consultants and staff). The United States is a banana republic.

You want an actual democratic republic that engages and energizes an informed & participatory electorate. We need a Constitutional Convention to change the electoral system.

1. Replace winner-take-all in an arbitrary geographic constituency electoral system for the legislature with proportional representation. Read the above referenced articles for a fair discussion of the advantages and mechanics of alternative voting systems.

2. Ditch the Electoral College. It is an obscenity that each state, no matter how small gets the same representation in the Senate. The largest state has almost a hundred times as many people as the smallest state. Since each state's electoral vote is proportional to its congressional delegation the presidential vote of a citizen of California is only worth something like 22% of what a vote cast in Wyoming is worth. Is it really any surprise that Californians spend 1.5 dollars in Federal taxes for each dollar of services and local spending that they get? We need a popular election for president with instant runoff voting.

Naturally, the small, conservative, coddled, stupid blue states might object to constitutional reforms that would dilute their privileged position, to which I respond with only one word: succession.

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