Democrats and Republicans have to fix primary system

As a candidate’s ability to travel from coast to coast becomes shorter and as mass media provide infinitely quicker methods of communicating ideas and presenting political debate, the time that the nation needs to evaluate its presidential candidates should become shorter.

And in perverse way, it is. The time allotted to winnowing down two dozen candidates to two is becoming shorter, while the time that the nation will have with the two major parties’ presumptive nominees will be as long as nine months. The result is unlikely to be beautiful.

Indeed, it is already beginning to look ugly for Ohio. Even though the state has moved its 2008 presidential primary up three months earlier than it was not too many years ago — to March 4 — Ohio is in danger of being irrelevant.

Bigger than super

That’s because 25 states are already slated to have their primaries or caucuses on what’s being called Super Duper Tuesday, Feb. 5. Seven states have scheduled their primaries and caucuses in January, even though doing so could result in sanctions by the parties against some of those states. The Democratic National Committee found Florida’s Democratic Party to be “out of compliance” with party rules designed to halt primary creep and said the state’s delegates will not be recognized at the national convention. It’s unlikely the Democrats will stick to their guns on that, especially if the Republican Party doesn’t take similar action. Florida remains a swing state, and as election day approaches, the enthusiasm for alienating the Florida electorate will wane.

But Florida is an example of the failure by the parties to control the nominating process in logical ways. Both parties adopted measures at their 2004 conventions that were supposed to improve the system. Both failed, and, obviously the issue is going to have to be addressed again this year, by the Democrats in Denver and the Republicans in Minneapolis. Let’s hope for a better result.

Election seasons should be neither too short nor too long. The primary process would ideally be concentrated in the first half of the election year, leaving a little breathing room before the convention and then two months or so for serious campaigning.

Instead, if the parties’ candidates aren’t determined on Super Duper Tuesday, they’ll certainly be locked in by March 4 when Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont hold their elections or caucuses. Pennsylvania’s primary is scheduled for April 22, but there is talk of moving it to Feb. 12 or March 4.

Watch out for the joker

There is one joker in the electoral deck that could drive both parties crazy. That’s multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City. Although he has denied interest in running, if the Republican and Democratic candidates spend months and hundreds of millions of dollars pummeling each other, Bloomberg, who could finance his own campaign to the tune of $1 billion or so, might find it irresistible to jump into the middle of the race.

While the party bosses are contemplating the implications of a three-way race, they might consider that even if Bloomberg were to resist in 2008, there really is no shortage of billionaires in the United States with various motivations.. The parties have to look to 2012, 2016 and beyond for ways of restoring sense to the electoral process.

Of course, there are those who would be happy to see the two party system self-destruct. But we’re not convinced that a Congress divided among a half dozen parties in the manner of some parliaments would produce a better political result.

Better that the parties recognize that the system is broken and do what they must to fix it before it descends into being dysfunctional.