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Thursday, May 10, 2007

The Given

So, Broder has a column on the front-loading of the primaries today. My problem with it is that it takes the primary system for granted. Here's an excerpt, which I will mock post-quote:

Instead of there being a steady progression of contests, challenging and whittling the field of contenders in the wide-open races to select a successor to George W. Bush, it is going to be a herky-jerky, feast-or-famine exercise that looks more like Russian roulette than anything that tests who can best fill the most powerful secular office on Earth.


Would the primary process work if there was "a steady progression of contests"? No, not really, because it would still depend on candidates reaching most voters through the media, and thus the media interpretation of early events would still be determinative. IOW, "moral victories" in early contests, beating expectations, etc. The primary process cannot plausibly be described, even if it is a steady progression of "whittling," as "test[ing] who can best fill" the job of president. It doesn't actually address judgment or decisionmaking. It is, today, a test of marketing skills.

Yes, my friends, we choose as president the person best able to market him or herself. That is the system we have. Would a longer term marketing campaign be better? Why?

Because we take the current system as a given. We argue over how to improve a fundamentally flawed system. Now, I don't have a workable alternative, at this time. But the primary system, depending so heavily on "ordinary" voters--and, as the Establishment prefers, voters in small, non-representative states--to determine which candidates should be president and which are not worthy, requiring vast fundraising, etc. If you stop to think about it, it doesn't make much sense.

Even if there is more time between contests, this is still true: "Most of those voters will never have had an opportunity to get even a glance at the candidates. All they will know is what the ads tell them -- and what the media can supply, when reporters are exhausting themselves dashing after the race from state to state."

If this paragraph still makes sense to you, keep working on it:

The mandate for the next pair of national party chairmen should be to agree on a sensible national agenda for the primaries -- either a rotating regional system that gives all states a turn at being early or a plan that allows a random mix of states to vote, but only on dates fixed in advance by the parties, and separated at intervals that allow voters to consider seriously their choices.


How will voters "seriously [consider] their choices" when they are bombarded with stories about $400 haircuts, campaign stop gaffes, and debates like the last two? The system is badly, badly out-of-whack, and tinkering with the ordering and timing of primaries won't fix it.

Now to the silliest part: ""the most powerful secular office on Earth." Huh? Does Broder mean that there are "powerful" non-secular offices? How many divisions has the Pope? (Oh, I know, it's bad form to quote Stalin.) Of course, the Pope can excommunicate you . . . and damn you to eternal hellfire. (I'm lookin' at you, Mexican legislators!) That is power, I guess. But as the Mittser would say, I don't have anything to do with Catholic bishops.

The natural follow-up is . . . who gets Broder's nod as "the most powerful religious office on Earth"?

2 Comments:

At 10:09 AM, Blogger tenaciousmcd said...

There are really two issues here that often get tangled up and confused: procedural fairness and efficacious outcomes. In other words, we often complain, on one hand, b/c not all voters have an equal chance at affecting who will be the nominees (and conversely that certain candidates will be disadvantaged by arbitrary factors, like the prevalence of NH), and on the other hand, we complain that we don't get very good nominees.

Now these two concerns are both arguably true, but both are also probably (a) unrelated and even incompatible complaints and (b) unfixable. Making the system more procedurally "fair" (the key Broder bitch), probably won't improve the quality of nominees, since as #3 points out, it's all about the marketing and changes in the name of fairness are likely to increase that tendency not decrease it.

Broder also seeems to have this nutty idea that the parties might agree on some kind of 24? year plan where all states get their turn to go early, yammer yammer yammer. As if parties are capable of making coherent decisions for the next 24 hours much less think in terms of years and then, brrrrr. . . work together on an agreement.

I've got an idea: why don't we just let Broder pick. That way it'll be both fair and correct. No one voter will have a chance to select the candidates, but all will be equally reflected in "the Oracle." Get ready for a battle royale: Lieberman vs. McCain '08.

 
At 8:40 PM, Blogger Number Three said...

TMcD makes a great distinction there. I am really not concerned at all with procedural fairness; smoky back rooms would suit me just fine, if it produced good chief executives.

 

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