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"?