Dems Pledge Not To Campaign In States Leapfrog Iowa, NH

Washington Post:

The Democratic candidates have signed a pledge that would forbid them from campaigning in states such as Michigan and Florida that have sought to move their presidential primaries into January 2008.

The move ended weeks-long jockeying over which states get to hold early primaries.

Read the whole story: Washington Post

Comments

[malcontented]

10:56 AM on 09/02/2007

The headline should read: "Dems pledge to stick with primary process that ensures their constituents no voice in selecting nominee."

Because really, that's how the current system works. The Iowa caucus is a joke - we go to a state that typically votes GOP and let those few who decide to come out for the Democratic poll decide who the nominee will be? Please. As we saw in 2004, this only ensures that those with the right state party connections get anywhere - it has nothing to do with the popularity of the candidate among regular voters or anything else.

Then the media runs with the "early momentum" angle, all the money flows to those candidates who sucked up to the right state party officials and finished at the top of the heap, and a few months later, we have "our" nominee - essentially someone selected by a few state party officials in a state where the state party can't even consistently carry the state for us.

It's a sure-fire formula for losing elections, which explains why the Democrats cling so tightly to it.

[Witchitalineman]

09:54 AM on 09/02/2007

What do these arrogant politicians do? Let's get some work done!

[abbiehoffmansghost]

07:28 AM on 09/02/2007

Just a thought: 1.)Let New Hampshire keep its first in the nation primary. Who cares. 2.) Legislate that active campaigning cannot begin until 6 months before an election. 3.)Let the news media do their job and dig like crazy during this time but let their be EXTREMELY stiff penalties to those media who overreach through libel, innuendo, false reporting, and slander in an effort to influence a democratic election. This would include huge fines, jail time for reporters and editors and owners, and removal of FCC licenses. 4.)National election money with private funds outlawed. After the billions and billions that we've spent on the Iraq war we can spend a few billion each election cycle on a real democracy.

[RevMetheus]

07:13 AM on 09/02/2007

Sweet, a huge fight to see which states want to drag out the primary process even longer. Its bad enough these candidates ignore their jobs for over 2 years to campaign, now we want states bickering over what exactly? Its not like the winner of the NH and Iowa primary get chosen as candidates, that's done by the media anyway. Kerry didnt win NH or Iowa and he was chosen. Either way we're going to get Clinton vs Obama whether we want it or not.

[DRaymond]

04:16 AM on 09/02/2007

Clearly something needs to be done to restore some sort of order and sanity to the process.

[RSU]

10:24 PM on 09/01/2007

Yeah, R I G H T . . .

[gvincent]

10:16 PM on 09/01/2007

Yes...lets piss off the swing states NOW...
http://www.crookedinc.com