USA Today Calls for Primary Reform

From this Morning’s Editorial:

To avoid this sort of absurdity, the two major political parties long ago sought to bar most states from picking nominees before Feb. 5. As a result, some 21 states will make their presidential picks on Feb. 5, truncating the nomination process and virtually guaranteeing a long, tedious general election campaign that will turn voters off.

That’s bad enough, but then states started jumping the line. In a welcome but belated move, Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan told five line-jumpers (Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Wyoming) this week that they’ll lose half their delegates. The Democratic National Committee allows some states to go early, but it has told Florida it will lose all its delegates and is warning Michigan of the same fate.

It’s good that the parties are showing some spine, but it’s too late to make the 2008 process fair and dignified. There’s plenty of time, however, for the parties to work out a rational process for 2012, such as a system of rotating regional primaries.

I’ve gone on record saying I’d prefer the Delaware system (where smaller states would go first, followed by larger ones.) but at this point, I’m not going to make the perfect the enemy of the good.