Since 1952, when the primary era began in all seriousness, 3 sitting Democratic Presidents have had their road to the political graveyard go through the gate of New Hampshire: Truman, LBJ and Carter all faced upset challenges in the granite state. Truman lost outright, and withdrew from the race days later.
[I'll be on My TV Prime Time to talk about the primary calendar later today. It is at 9pm on Channel 50 in the Southern New Hampshire/Boston Metro area.]
Now the Democratic National Committee, under the leadership of chairman Howard Dean, has begun the process to shift the focus from the Iowa/New Hampshire duo to a "more diverse" primary beginning. The underlying reality here is that a broad section of the Democratic coalition wants in on choosing nominees. It is less about diversity, than about the swing/base conflict that is within both parties. Traditionally, the Democratic Party has done best when they nominate from their base: since the Civil War 5 of the 8 Democrats to enter the White House have come from swing regions, and the 7th, Truman of Missouri, was not elected first in his own right, nor was the 8th, LBJ.
This logic produces a pressure for a southern state, and to keep the primary calendar as it is: Iowa and New Hampshire are Republican leaning swing states at the Presidential level.
However, the opposite case can be made: the Republican Party since the Civil War has nominated 13 base state Presidents, and only two swing state Presidents. One of these, Roosevelt, was not elected first in his own right, and Reagan came from California when it was part of the Republican base, the seismic shift happening to no small extent because of his time as governor.
For them Iowa and New Hampshire represent part of their base coalition: states that a strong Republican nominee is expected to win. But both states are changing underneath the Republicans. While Steve Forbes is pushing the flat earth tax right now for '08, he finds a New Hampshire that is far more a bedroom community of Boston, and a growing high tech belt in its own right, rather than the old mill, military and mountain state of yore.
But the real heat is being laid on Iowa: caucuses are not really democratic as a way of choosing delegates, and the oddities of the process make it much harder for an insurgent to enter late. There have been a few on background snickers that Dean is exacting his revenge for Iowa's turning away from him, but the reality is somewhat the reverse - the party activist base wants more say in the nominee, and that means primaries held in states where mobilization in urban and first collar suburban districts is key. Michigan has been bandied about as the northern state.
Both states want to remain first, and it is a chicken and egg problem for Democratic hopefuls: speak out against first in the nation status, and it dooms your chances should you fail. This means that, to some extent, only someone who is widely thought not to be seeking the nomination, and not having a dog in this fight will have the ability to drive change.
As someone who has grown up seeing New Hampshire at close range in Presidential politics, I can say that the problem isn't New Hampshire, or its demographics, it is the entire way the primary system is a great land rush. The better way to run a primary season would be to have later actual primaries, and more of what used to be called "beauty contests". The pre-primary season was important in 2003. That season produced - well the blogosphere's roll in politics, and has reshaped the Democratic Party's agenda and power structure - and that change is on going. More beauty contests would allow for an early winnowing of the field, and then allow a more focused group of candidates to enter into the bubble of retail politics. It would also be beneficial for Iowa to move to a primary, rather than a caucus system.
These could then be followed up with a series of test primaries in the key regions, I like Arizona, Rhode Island, Michigan and Virginia as tests - polling two base states and two swing states in four competitive regions - before following on with large regional primaries. In truth we should overhaul the way we fund campaigns, but within the context of what is doable for 2008, an agreement that only the top four after the beauty contests go into the two first in the nations would be extremely helpful, and a revised post Iowa-New Hampshire primary calendar to give powerhouses of the Democratic coalition a chance to make a decision, rather than rubber stamp a media circus, would be a good first step in giving the broad majority of the Democratic Party a say in the nominee.
The other part of the problem is that the two are now so well known, that jockeying for position in these two states now overwhelms everything else - trips to Iowa and New Hampshire, locking up the local political machine, replace building a broad based coalition. In the days when Presidential contenders didn't campaign, but had to cobble together coalitions for the convention, this was less of a problem. Now, we have to ask whether it is healthy to have nominees spending all of their time courting voters for two or three years, when they need to be building a national network of supporters to run a national campaign.
The pre-primary calender would be the one that would be reworked - that is, change what 2007 looks like, with straw polls and caucuses in states such as Florida and Wisconsin - with all candidates participating. Because the really damaging part of the first in the nation mentality has been the pressure not to enter these pre-primary contests, lest it disrupt the importance of the two.
In this scenario, everyone gives a bit - but it keeps the peace within the Democratic Party, and gives voice to millions of voters - of all descriptions - who have been left in the wake of accidents of geography - home town boys winning early in Iowa and New Hampshire, with a message that includes big dollops of name recognition and local muscle rather than real retail politicking.
The reality is that holding on to these two primaries is a way of the top down political structure having its cake and eating it too. Rather than retail politics, it was media politics that deteremined Iowa - with Kerry riding to victory on a wave of late ads and on Dean's poor showing on television. Merely that these two states are "cheap test markets" for a top down campaign. However, top down campaigning is going to get too expensive too fast - as the voting base in New Hampshire moves south, and into the costly Massachussetts media market. It will be better for the Democrats to realize that this situation is unstable, and is not well serving their quest for a nominee.