Dysfunction For Fun And Profit

Dysfunction Junction, what's your function?
Hooking up voters and wannabes
Dysfunction Junction, how's that function?
I got two favorite sons
that I want to appease
(With sincere apologies to Schoolhouse Rock)

David Broder positively rips into the Democrats for screwing with the primary schedule for 2008. Is some of it a resistance to change? Probably. Is some of it common sense? You bet. He lays out some pretty solid reasons why the Democrats are running with scissors here.

The revised calendar, at least tentatively, has the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Jan. 14, 2008, with Nevada holding its caucuses five days later, on Saturday, Jan. 19. Then it would be back across the country for the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, Jan. 22, with South Carolina voting in a primary one week later, on Tuesday, Jan. 29.

All this effort to force-feed four contests in four different parts of the country into a two-week period at the start of the year is designed, the sponsors say, to make the presidential nominating process more "representative."

What they mean is that Iowa and New Hampshire, which have led the nominating process since 1976, are overwhelmingly white — and notably short of the African American and Latino voters on whom Democrats depend in the general election.

So Nevada, with a growing Hispanic population, was inserted before New Hampshire, thanks also to a boost from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada's senior senator. And South Carolina was an easy choice to fill the need for a state with lots of black voters, pleasing native son and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, an unannounced contender for the nomination that eluded him last time.

This Democratic version of affirmative action leaves a lot to be desired. Unions are a major source of Democratic votes and money. Maybe Rhode Island should be rewarded for being a stronghold of union activity at a time when labor elsewhere is beleaguered. And gays vote Democratic; shouldn't the states that are home to San Francisco and Key West be allowed to vote early? And if Jewish contributors keep the party solvent, shouldn't New York be up there with the other pacesetters?

Always a problem. Who to pander to when it comes time to dole out the limited pandering budget? Broder is very harsh here. I suspect he's right to hold the position he does, too. Both New Hampshire and Iowa take their roles very seriously indeed. But now, instead of trying to define themselves to a few groups, candidates will have to try to hit twice as many events. It is going to be a mad rush with few people able to stand out. In the long run, this may be the greatest damage the Democrats have done to themselves for the next election cycle.