Editorial: There has got to be a better way

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2000 | 9:22 a.m.

Now that the New Hampshire presidential primary is over, the survivors must meet an even more daunting task: navigating the crushing schedule of primaries to follow. Unlike in previous elections, where the nominating primaries and caucuses were scattered throughout the winter and spring, there has been a front-loading of primaries at the beginning of the 2000 election season. In a desire to have their voices heard, because many of them had previously held their contests after the nominations already were sewn up, a number of states moved up their presidential primaries and caucuses this year.

To get an idea of how crowded it is, consider this: On March 7, 11 states -- including California and New York -- will hold primaries and a few others will hold caucuses. Then just one week later, on March 14, six Southern states will hold their primaries. This has created a situation where it is possible for a candidate to virtually wrap up the nomination by the middle of March -- before the nation's voters have had a chance to really start paying attention.

The results of a recent poll by the Vanishing Voter Project, a nonpartisan group that tracks voter interest, would seem to validate that front-loading the primaries raises a genuine concern of whether or not an informed electorate will be selecting the Democratic and Republican nominees. The survey, taken from Jan. 19-23, found that just 6 percent of voters were paying "a great deal of attention" to the presidential election campaign. Only 10 percent responded they were following the election "quite a bit" and 18 percent said "just some." Meanwhile, 65 percent responded that they were paying either little or no attention to the campaign. Bunching primaries together at the start of a campaign in this way can't be healthy for a democracy.

If the front-loading this year results in nominations being decided early, then it will only lead even more states to leapfrog over others in 2004, creating a presidential primary gridlock. A reasonable alternative would bring some order to the current chaos. Under this plan, advocated by state election officials, there would be rotating, regional primaries. These regional primaries also would be spread over a long enough period of time -- possibly a month apart -- so there wouldn't be a mad dash. It's too late for 2000, but the states, political parties and Congress should seriously consider this reform.