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Dallas Morning News: Another presidential primary. Another shutout.
The Democratic presidential race appears over before it even lands in Dallas, Houston and El Paso. Texans haven't had a competitive presidential primary since the 1992 Democratic race between Bill Clinton and Paul Tsongas.
Texans aren't alone. Voters in the other four largest states -- California, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania -- don't have a real voice in this year's Democratic primaries, either. Unless he pulls a Howard Dean and collapses, John Kerry is the Democratic nominee before he even gets to the Big Five.
We would have liked the chance to make a recommendation that mattered in this race. But coming out today in favor of the Massachusetts senator -- more than three weeks prior to the Texas Democratic primary -- is about as meaningful as a Justin Timberlake apology.
What to do about the injustice of a selection process biased against the interests of so many Americans? Here's our suggestion.
Here's the plan
The parties need to create rotating regional primaries. There could be four or five, whatever the numbers dictate. Let's start next time, in 2008. Put Northeastern states in one primary, for example, the Midwestern ones in another. Add a Southeastern region, a Rocky Mountain region and a far Western region. Whatever. The parties would host these primaries in consecutive months, starting, say, in March of each presidential year and running through June or July. The order would rotate every four years so that no single region would dominate the process.
Regional primaries have several advantages:
Candidates can make their cases in more than Iowa and New Hampshire -- whose populations, really, bear no resemblance to America as a whole. Underfunded candidates get a chance. And more voters get a say.
The National Association of Secretaries of State approved a resolution Friday that calls for regional primaries. We applaud that -- though the group errantly would let Iowa and New Hampshire hold their own primaries first.
We urge the National Governors' Association to put its weight behind regional primaries when the governors meet this month. And we urge the Democratic and Republican parties to approve them at their 2004 national conventions.