The next US Presidential Primaries are still almost 18 months away, but are gaining some attention now with the new rules just put in place by the Democratic party. Up until now, the Iowa caucus has always been first, followed by the New Hampshire primary. However, the new rules enacted by the Democrats insert the Nevada caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire, and schedule a South Carolina primary immediately afterwards. All the other primaries seem to be unchanged.

Their reasoning for this is that Iowa and New Hampshire and not really representative of the country, let alone the Democratic party. Consequently they want to introduce diversity into the race early on.

This move seems to make sense for them. However, the problem is that with the ways that primaries currently work in the US, it is normally up to each state to schedule their primary - not the individual parties. In addition, New Hampshire has a law requiring their Secretary of State to schedule their primary before any other similar contest. The Secretary is given broad discretion to interpret this, and the current Secretary of State is determined to ensure that New Hampshire retains its pre-eminent position.

To combat this, the DNC have introduced a further rule that penalising any candidate who campaigns in a state that ignores the DNC's calendar. Such candidates will be stripped of any delegates that they receive from the state.

Firstly, let me say that I do not like the way that primaries work in the US at present. Selection of candidates for office is really a job for the parties themselves - the state should not be getting involved by determining the date of the primary election, or how the election occurs. It really should be a matter for the parties themselves to sort out.

However, the penalty for campaigning in a state ignoring the schedule is almost meaningless. The main state likely to flout the schedule is New Hampshire (if they decide that the Nevada caucus is a similar contest). But New Hampshire currently sends around 40 delegates to the national convention, out of a total of more than 4000. And when was the last time that a candidate won the nomination by 40 delegates? Probably not for a long time. Generally the nominee is decided well before the convention by a substantial margin.

Early on in the race, name recognition and momentum are far more important to a candidate than the 40 delegates from New Hampshire. Candidates want to win New Hampshire, not for the minimal number of delegates, but so that they are seen to be likely nominee, and consequently win the more important states later on.

So the penalty from the DNC is just irrelevant. If New Hampshire ignores the schedule, I think that all the front-runner candidates will still campaign there, even though they won't get the delegates.

Posted by Dave Bryant at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)