Being sick of Iowa and New Hampshire and wanting to someday cast a meaningful primary vote without becoming a corn farmer, I was thinking about better ways to order the primaries.
My first thought was to order the based on the closeness of the presidential vote in the last election
Based on closeness, the first 2012 primaries would be Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, Florida. Iowa & NH would drop to 14th/15th position. Going last would be Oklahoma, Wyoming, Vermont, Hawaii, D. C. Sounds OK.
An advantage of this system is that the next set of candidates would have to appeal to the exact states that were the battleground last time around which should make more extreme candidates less popular.
But then i did a little test. In 1984 Ronald Reagan stomped Walter Mondale, taking 49 states. Based on the closeness rule, the first 5 primaries in 1988 would have been Minnesota (Mondales home state!), Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Pennsylvania. Not exactly the middle of the road there.
While having all blue states lined up early sounds swell, in the opposite case of a Democratic rout, the next primary cycle would be composed of something like Oklahoma, Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas and Idaho. You want those states choosing the next Democratic Nominee?
So closeness is a good idea...IF the elections are close. And that is not always the case. So my improvement is to order based upon the states the most mirror the national percentage for the 2 parties(or hovever many parties get at least 5% of the vote).
In 2008 Obama won the vote 52.9% to 45.6%. The closest state to that split was Virginia (52.6 to 46.3) so they go first. The early 2012 primaries would be Virginia, Colorado,Iowa,New Hampshire, Ohio. OK so they're back, but moved down 2 spots. The last primaries would be Utah, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Wyoming, D. C. which seems reasonable.
In 1988 after a Republican landslide (58.8 to 40.6) the first primaries would be
Ohio, Michigan, Vermont, Delaware, Missouri. The last 5 would be Nebraska
Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, D. C. Looks like DC goes last no matter what.
So that saves us from the Iowa-ites and allows the 'center' of American politics first bite at the apple when we're selecting candidates.