Brian Keegan at Centerfield observes that the increasingly front-loaded primary schedule has an unfortunate potential side effect of entrenching big-money interests in the primary system, by making it difficult for less well-funded candidates to gain notice and momentum.
He asks:
Wouldn’t it be nice if the states got together and came up with a stable rotating calendar that spread things out over a reasonable time frame? Encouraging the development of grass roots support? And preserving the possibility of a candidate growing momentum by crafting a message and a platform at least partly in response to what they learned while campaigning?
Each state could get a chance to cast votes in a prominent position once every 3 or 4 elections.[...]
I’m all for it. However, good sense and politics frequently seem to not go hand-in-hand…especially when the corrupting influence of money is at work.