Call it the Sunshine State’s quadrennial deja view of the political landscape. It’s Florida in the role of presidential primary cause célèbre. Again.
This is what it comes down to. It’s a political given that presidential candidates have to win Florida to be elected. That’s because Florida–with its diverse 12 million registered voters–is the ultimate swing state: 29 electoral votes’ worth. Given that reality, it makes no sense for a state that can determine who is elected president to not have a meaningful say in who gets nominated to be president.
In the past, Florida has found itself as a rubber-stamp in the primary process, ceding inordinate influence to the likes of New Hampshire and Iowa and then Nevada and South Carolina as well–who are hardly the equal of Florida as a demographic microcosm of this country. They are the products of tradition and the beneficiaries of ethnic and racial tokenism.
That’s what prodded Florida to ignore Republican National Committee etiquette (no sooner than March 6) and move its primary–for the second consecutive election cycle–to late January. This time it’s Jan. 31. The trade-off of losing half its (Republican) convention delegates for serious front-end influence was deemed a worthwhile tradeoff. There hasn’t been a brokered convention by either party since 1952, the year Adlai Stevenson outmaneuvered Estes Kefauver in Chicago.
Recent primary history tells us that the bandwagon effect is critical. Just ask John McCain, who all but clinched the 2008 GOP nomination by winning the Jan. 29 Florida primary.
Of course, Florida’s move up isn’t the only one, although it’s the one that makes the most sense. Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Michigan are also defying the March 6 cutoff. And New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina will play primary leap frog as well.
None of which pleases the RNC, whose top priority is avoiding chaos from front-loading–not assuring that make-or-break-election states are fairly represented in the primary system.
Which begs an obvious question. Why doesn’t the RNC lobby Congress to push for a better system than make way for the Gang of Four and skew everyone else? It’s not as if no one has thought of a preferable, albeit imperfect, plan. As in rotating, regional primaries.
It would give the RNC the order it craves, but it would give voters a more representative voice.