Tweak, Don't Overhaul The Primaries - WSJ's Al Hunt

[question everything]

Mr. Hunt invites comments to [e-mail]

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Yet proposals by critics, Democrats like Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, to replace Iowa and New Hampshire as the initial tests with "more representative" states would be disastrous. The better elements of the current system should be retained, coupled with a more considered process.

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When late on a Friday night, John Kerry fields questions at a high school in Makoqueta, Iowa, from several hundred voters -- who've waited for hours -- about the problems of the No Child Left Behind educational measure or the priorities in the war against terrorism, it's good for the candidate and the process. When John Edwards is asked to be specific about jobs and the economy in an overflowing Rochester, N.H., high school on a frigid, icy afternoon, that's good too. Gen. Wesley Clark faltered as a presidential candidate, but he became much better and much more informed about America through this retail process. And the role of enthusiastic young Deaniacs, who will affect the face of politics for elections to come, would have been diminished if this whole business started in the Detroit media market.

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But then the process moves too quickly. Voters are given little opportunity for discerning consideration, and if you don't win in Iowa or New Hampshire you get lost in this tsunami. This year, for example, over two-thirds of the delegates to the Democratic convention are chosen in only six weeks following New Hampshire.

A better system would keep the value of the early retail politics but allow more breathing room to slow any rush to a decision. Iowa and New Hampshire would be held in the last half of January, two weeks apart rather than one. Then starting in early March there would be four regional primaries, one every three weeks; ideally these would be held by time zone and would rotate order every four years.

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The Republicans will set their 2008 rules at this summer's New York convention.

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One prominent Democrat ventures that if Sen. Kerry doesn't win, "Iowa and New Hampshire are dead." Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who front-loaded the system too much this time, deserves credit for insisting on retaining the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. But, before November, Chairman McAuliffe has to appoint a commission that will recommend a 2008 structure, and much of the party's interest groups will be for change.

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