For those of you who do not know me from the Viewpoint blog, where I talk about Life, The Universe and other strangeness, I am a UK citizen, an observer of events, looking for truth and sense in a world, both regular and political, that often seems senseless. Hence my viewpoint being a UK one.
Now, to someone who participates in a one member one vote system like the UK's, I find the whole US system of primaries and caucuses before we even get to the election itself to be far too long, cumbersome and difficult to understand. But out of all the campaigns I have followed since 1984, this one has gone on far longer than any other, like watching all six Star Wars films in one sitting, or all 3 extended cuts of Lord Of The Rings in one go, with more holes and caveats than a badly-plotted B-movie.
So this weekend's DNC meeting to decide the fate of the delegates of Florida and Michigan, is just another one of those holes that, towards the end of the film, has to be filled. But at the moment, there seems to be no solution that would satsify all parties. Nothing unusual there then! The question though, that will be on the minds of the DNC Rules Committee will be, Is there a solution to this whole issue of Florida and Michigan's Democratic Party primaries, and if not, what can be done to avoid this whole debacle happening again?
I think it must be as clear to the committee, as it is clear to me, that the situation that dominated the first year of this whole campaign, must never be allowed to happen again. Weekly talk shows such as Meet The Press, The McLaughlin Group, Washington Week and the like were dominated by the issue of states jockeying for position in the election race. Most states moved their elections up the calendar to try to gain influence in the nomination race. Practically a whole year was spent just trying to sort that out. And for what? All that moving around, all those desperate attempts to increase influence, all the political shenanigans, ultimately, finally counted for nought! This race is going to the wire, because one candidate currently doesn't know that the fat lady has sung.
But back to the primary jockeying. The DNC Rules committee must know, that it MUST lay down the law here, otherwise we will get a repeat of this in 2012, 2016 and every four years after that, with the campaigns starting the second the Congressional Elections end. Hillary Clinton wants to change the rules now, that she signed up to when it was orignally all decided umpteen months ago, because it suits her to have them changed. Unfortunately if that were to happen, every four years you'd get the same jockeying for position with the states, and more of these debacles. You cannot just change the rules when you want to.
But more than that, what the DNC rules committee MUST do, is to change the whole primary process. If they insist of holding a primary process, then here's how it should be done. All 50 states, all the candidates, all on the same day. No jockeying for position, no candidates dropping out after just a few primaries have been held, all 50 states, everyone allowed to vote, all on the same day. Such a move would avoid so much trouble, trouble that the process generates as it is now.
There is an old adage that I live by, a very well known one, K. I. S. S. It stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid!". It would do well, for the DNC Rules Committee to remember that, and to remember the hanging chads debacle of 2000 in Florida. The things that work best are often the simplest.