Regional primaries

The proposal for regional presidential primaries that Maine Secretary of State Dan Gwadosky detailed before the nation’s governors last week doesn’t resolve all the concerns citizens rightly hold about the primary system. But it fixes enough of them in a realistically achievable manner to be worthy of consideration.

Speaking during the governors’ winter meeting, Secretary Gwadosky presented a proposal, developed by the National Association of Secretaries of State, that the nation be divided into four geographic regions with each region holding its primaries and caucuses in a given month: March, April, May or June. The regions would rotate months every four years. So if the Northeast — which would stretch from Maine to West Virginia and include electoral behemoth states such as New York, Massachusetts and Maryland — held their primaries in March 2004, they might move to June in 2008.

The proposal directly addresses the escalation of “front loading” the nomination process. In 1968, only New Hampshire held its primary in March, the nominations weren’t decided until June. By 1984, eight states had packed their primaries into March. Now, the primary season begins in February; by the end of March, 27 states will have voted. This hectic schedule hardly contributes to meaningful debate and thoughtful consideration, it only elevates the importance of money and slick ad campaigns.

Under the proposal, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary would retain their first-in-the-nation status. Critics claim allowing those states to stay out in front of all others continues to give them undue weight in the electoral process. But Secretary Gwadosky rightly notes that some degree of “retail” voting serves the electoral process, giving just about anyone who wants to try a run at the presidency a place to do it. And though he doesn’t voice it directly, Secretary Gwadosky also realizes that a national primary system that doesn’t leave Iowa and New Hampshire in their traditional roles will not pass muster with those states, and thus would fail.

Critics also claim the system won’t help smaller states, such as Maine, which are lost in the competition to garner the votes of big states such as New York, California and Ohio. But Maine’s paltry four electoral votes won’t ever draw significant attention from presidential candidates. The best the state can hope for is the occasional candidate’s wife keynoting a fund-raising dinner or impromptu press conference by the candidate at the Portland International Jetport as he passes through on his way to another obligation.

If nothing else, a regional primary system would keep the candidates in a given area of the nation at a given time frame, making it easier for them to schedule events here, rather than jetting, for example, from Virginia to Washington, as they did last week.

No system can eliminate all the woes afflicting the electoral system. But the plan proposal by the secretaries of state would at least end the states’ race to be the first to vote on presidential candidates, and it would do so in an equitable manner. That alone would be a vast improvement.