The Democratic Party’s Presidential Primary; the Bowl Championship Series; two contests, each attempting to decide one winner. One is fatally flawed. The other? Worse. What’s your take? More after the fold.
I can’t help but notice, as the Democratic Party’s presidential primary slowly slides toward Florida v2.0, how this painfully obstinate and disenfranchising process mirrors the Bowl Championship Series.
The Bowl Championship Series claims to derive the best team in college football through a one-game per team bowl process. There are four entrenched bowl games, the Rose, Sugar, Orange, and (inspiringly-named) Fiesta Bowl. The kicker being the newly added championship game, played in one of the same venues. These few games are not nearly enough to determine, out of a field of dozens of contenders, who the best team in the nation is.
The DNC has announced that they too are going to support the "four entrenched" format. Except in this case, the four are Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada (the fiesta state). Quite the typical slice of America right? Why these states get primary primacy, (or climactic caucuses) is beyond me...cough, cough, Harry Reid. But the system is equally weighted toward favoring the few while ignoring or suppressing the many. And in the one year where all the primaries or caucuses actually have a chance to count, look at the havoc that Michigan and Florida are wreaking.
You can’t blame the states for trying to change a broken system. But you can’t blame the DNC for sticking to their guns either. I say give their delegates to Mike Gravel. Come on, he’s been sticking it out for so long, throw the guy a bone...
Here’s the long-term solution, and I’ll leave it to others to work out the details. First, and most importantly, an eight team playoff for college football’s national championship. Secondly, a geographically based rotating primary, wherein one state from each geographic region will hold the first primary or caucus on the same day, with each region rotating the states that select first. And let Florida and Michigan go first in 2012. It’s the least the DNC could do...