caption, please
 

caption, please
 

whoops. That's not adrian fenty.

Primaries
 

Why wouldn't we want to have them all on the same day? Th only reason I can think of are that it would keep candidates who don't have a lot of money up front from having any chance whatsoever (whereas now they can campaign hard in a couple places and gain momentum from doing well at that point), but that doesn't seem to be viable even today.

Primaries
 

That's one reason. The other is that states like Iowa and New Hampshire know they would become irrelevant if their primaries weren't first, so they fight like dogs to make sure they're first and have some increase influence.

One certainly could design a much more efficient system that would have some primaries earlier and some later, each having a cross-section of states. The early ones would winnow hte field; the late ones would confirm the nominee. For fairness, the states could rotate who was early and late.

Primaries
 

Sounds like a good idea.

Iowa and NH can suck it.

Primaries
 

Small, rural states don't like, because none of the candidates would ever visit and listen to them.

Though they've already got too way too much representation in the Senate and a bit too much in the House, so I say fuck 'em. Who really wants to listen to what people in Wyoming, Delaware, Vermont or Alaska have to say. And Candidates will still stop in Utah on a lay-over.

Primaries
 

MA only has 10.

California needs to be split at least in two, and maybe three.

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Primaries
 

Sounds like a quote from an upcoming "caught on cell-cam" video on you tube.

Primaries
 

Right. FWIW, Fringey's reason should not be underestimated. If the primary is a single, 50 state primary, only the Clintons, Obamas, Romneys and Bloombergs of the world would have a chance of doing anything, and even then they'd have to raise a couple hundred million just to win the primaries.

Primaries
 

Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran.

Primaries
 

Once you have a national primary, what matters is electoral votes per media market; every significant city with a good airport will get "tagged" by the candidates, but the candidates will basically live in a handful of major media markets.

Primaries
 

And? Why? How is this different from now, really, aside from the huge amount of time spent in dinky town in those states that have early primaries?

Primaries
 

It seems like the ultimate winners would have to raise about the same amount of money, but there might be more "waste" because of no winnowing out. Or the winnowing out would happen at the fundraising stage.

Primaries
 

Now, you have a media campaign that lasts weeks and progresses through wherever the primaries are, with distinct strategies and budgets for each. If Hawaii and West Virginia come the week before NY in the schedule, you may get more bang for the buck by picking one and really focusing on it than by campaigning in NY, so the story before the NY Primary is "Fringie upsets Atticus in West Virgina; Atticus blames his loss on dumb hicks".

Likewise, right now, you're budgetting for separate primaries in NY, NJ and Connecticut, and have to figure your NY budgets based on buying time at up to three different points; the net result is, it's often better to buy more Albany/Syracuse time during a NY primary than NYC time - in terms of the number of NY voters reached per dollar spent. Likewise, buy Hartford TV during the Connecticut primary, but focus on radio and print in Southeastern CT. It's a simpler game, and thus a game that plays better to the big population centers, if its all one primary.

So, how is it different? Syracuse loses importance as well as Davenport. NY and Houston just get even more important.

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