Though pleased with the presidential candidates it produced, the national Republican and Democratic parties are unhappy with the primary system that produced them. The accelerated packing of key primaries — called front-loading — into the first month of what is supposed to be a four-month nominating process turned what should have been a deliberative and unifying marathon into a hectic and divisive sprint.

The GOP has taken the first step toward reform. Its Rules Committee this week endorsed a plan that would group the states into three population classes of small, midsize and large which would vote in that order in a primary season running from February to May. This plan addresses one of the major problems in the current free-for-all system — the increasing irrelevancy of small states — and it has a good chance of passage at the Republican national convention this summer — states that conceivably would gain clout hold about two-thirds of the delegates.

Officially, Democratic leaders have taken no position on primary reform. They fought this battle back in the 1970s, when front-loading began, and got scolded by Republicans for trying to thwart the GOP’s rising influence in the fast-growing Sun Belt. Unofficially, Democratic leaders say they’ll gladly let Republicans take the heat this time and enter into bipartisan talks on the matter after the November election.

The Republican proposal isn’t bad. It is certainly better than another leading contender in the reform sweepstakes, the one-day national primary. The only upside to that recipe for more sound-bite politics would be its merciful brevity, but it’s no way to pick the two leading contenders for leader of the Free World.

The Republican proposal is not, however, as good as the one presented to the National Governors Conference in March by the National Association of Secretaries of State calling for regional primaries. Under that plan, which still has some strong adherents on the GOP Rules Committee, the states would be grouped into four geographic regions, with each region holding its primaries and caucuses in a given month — March, April, May or June — and with the regions rotating months every four years.

That plan has several advantages. It faces the reality that the amount of attention a state receives from candidates will always be proportional to its delegate count, regardless of when the primary is held. It correctly recognizes that states are bound together more by regional issues than by population — Mainers, for example, will learn more about candidates who spend a month wooing voters in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York than they will about candidates flitting from Mississippi to South Dakota to Alaska. It, by virtue of being devised by secretaries of state from both parties, already has a bipartisan stamp of approval.

In its early days, front-loading was envisioned as an efficient way to get the nominating out of the way so the nominees would have more time to define themselves for the electorate — that is, more time to attack each other. The reality of 30 years of front-loading is shrinking voter participation, candidacies decided before candidate positions are known and “quick-strike” primary campaigns that leave inter-party wounds that never heal. The GOP proposal may not be the best fix, but at least it recognizes something is broken.