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How to Fix the Presidential Nomination Process…and Other Imaginary Tales
By Edward Espinoza
Member, Democratic National Committee
After seeing the presidential nomination process unfold over the course of five months, it’s a good time to reflect and see what can be done to improve upon things.
Should Iowa and New Hampshire retain benevolent rights to remain first? Might we caucus on Father’s Day? Can Superdelegates really halt an insurgent candidacy from someone like Mike Gravel? Here’s a list of ideas that might get us going in the right direction.
No More Caucuses. Using a caucus as a form of an election makes about as much sense as putting candidates through a cage fighting match to determine a nominee. Actually a cage fighting match might be better as it may prove who is better suited to battle with cable TV commentators. One needs a math degree to figure caucuses out – and even then the numbers don’t make sense. Let’s get rid of them.
Kill the Grinch. Can we please leave Christmas out of elections? Iowa held its caucuses on January 3rd this year, leaving thousands of campaign workers and volunteers in hotel rooms on December 25th so that they could resume campaigning again on December 26th. No one appreciates this – not the staff, not the media, least of all the voters. What did February do to offend so many people? Am I the only one that likes the novelty of kicking off a presidential primary season around, oh I don’t know, say…President’s Day?
Update the Election Calendar. While we’re talking about months, it should be noted that the nomination calendar is six months long. Take into account the 18 months of campaigning leading up to that, and it’s the same amount of time I spent as a junior in college. Here’s an idea to cut that in half: February is for early states, Super Tuesday is in March, and we wrap this up in April just in time to pay our taxes. Worst case scenario we take it to Memorial Day. And we still have all spring and summer to spend two internships on the selection of a running mate!
Have a Uniform Process. Some states have primaries. Some states have caucuses. Texas has a primary and a caucus which uses (literally) a rugby scrum to determine the caucus chair. Nevada uses a round of high card to determine tie-breakers. Are we really still nominating Presidential candidates this way? Let’s get out of the Wild West and into the present day.
Fewer Superdelegates. Yes, there is a place for Party leaders in the nomination process – but not a 20% place. Members of Congress should be pledged add-on bonus delegates awarded to the winner of their district, leaving only DNC members as true supers. This easily cuts the number of supers in half while still providing an emergency provision to keep Mike Gravel from winning the nomination (and whew, because he was that close).
Edward Espinoza is a political and public relations consultant based in Southern California and Washington, DC. He represents California on the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He previously served as a field director to 2008 presidential candidate Bill Richardson and as staff to the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign, the re-elections of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the election of members of Congress from California, and provided strategic counsel for issue and independent expenditure campaigns in Florida, Oregon and South Dakota. He has also served as a field deputy to California Senator Gloria Romero.
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