Watching the conservative, religious Democrats of SC send a twice-failed presidential candidate to a primary victory within 240 seconds of the polls closing, all I can say is, could we please stop letting progressive independent-minded Democrats in NH have any say in the process?
PS/ Obviously I kid: I've often said the early primary states, taken in totality, must be reflective of the Democratic Party in *all respects* a voting population can be representative. Let's just not pretend that SC is where innovative, non-establishment Democrats go to succeed.
PS2/ The guff New Hampshire receives for having such an early role in the nominating process is sensible in many respects and misguided in others. What always annoys me, though, is the implication that we serve up safer picks than later states. No—*we* give real underdogs a shot.
PS3/ Every 4 years, states that Democrats are told are the "real" states that "matter" serve up conservative establishment Democrats to lose to whoever the Republicans are running that cycle. It's a little bit disheartening to watch it happen yet again this year. I'm sorry—it is.
PS4/ I've repeatedly said we need a new primary plan featuring a tight bunching of primaries early on whose total population(s) are representative of the Democratic Party in all possible respects. But let's also admit that SC—not NH—will have an outsized effect this cycle. Again.
PS5/ All the talk about going first being such a special privilege starts to seem a little preposterous when the states that go first get savaged the whole time they're listening to candidates and voting and then get *ignored* by the time momentum for Super Tuesday is being set.
PS6/ If IA and NH had a reputation for trying to winnow down the field and leave fewer options for later states, that'd be one thing. In fact the opposite happens: they're cheap to run in and they tend to like underdogs. Then *larger states* vote for bad establishment candidates.
PS7/ I keep saying that I like Biden—and I have a reputation for saying just what I mean. I sure as hell *do* like Biden—as a person. But the idea that pushing Biden forward as a real option is the smart voting choice the party has been waiting for for *weeks* is... preposterous.
PS8/ Purple states that can be run in without enormous expense should definitely be at the front of the Democratic calendar. And preferably they should be ones with large volumes of both moderates and progressives. South Carolina is a state of conservative Democrats. It just is.
NOTE/ Crikey! Come on, folks, yes of *course* the first post in this thread was sarcasm. (There really is no other way to read it.) I'm saying that the Democratic Party needs a new primary system, but fetishizing conservative Democrats who like establishment pols ain't it, IMHO.
