Wicked Pissah

New Hampshire's hold on the first in the nation primary is growing increasingly tenuous, at least as far as the Democratic Party is concerned. I am pretty mixed about this. As a New Hampshire native and still semi-jingoist, I believe that tradition ought to matter, that the particular style of retail politics that the New Hampshire primary imposes on candidates is good for democracy, and that New Hampshire stepped up to the plate long ago when it was not a particular honor to be first but rather a duty and when in any case candidates were chosen by the parties rather than in any meaningful way by the public. Why now should the Granite State be shoved to the side, or at least diminished, in the candidate selection process?

At the same time, New Hampshire is not exactly representative of our great democracy. The state is about 99% white. Ethnically, socially, geographically the state is not as diverse as the presidential selection process warrants. New Hampshire may be the most libertarian-inclined state in the country and so having its citzens choose the candidates for each party's nomination seems to have a warping effect sometimes. I understand all of these points intellectually, even if my heart and sense of loyalty indicate that New hampshire deserves to maintain some status, however honorific, in the primary season.

But here is what I do not want to see happen: A move toward early, frontloaded superprimaries in which the party's choice happens quickly without voters being able to see candidates be hardened by a selection process. I do not want to see retail politics, the politics of the spaghetti supper and pancake breakfast and candidates trudging through the snow and gingerly walking on the ice and giving speeches in high school gymnasiums, give way to the saturation of blanket television ads and speeches in giant auditoriums delivered to the voter only via television, if then.

New Hampshire still has a role to play. Rather than place Nevada's caucus between that of Iowa and the primary in the North Country, why not leave things as they are, but, as they plan, bring South Carolina's primary closer on the heels of New Hampshire's and have Nevada be that week as well, preserving New Hampshire's role, at least symbolically, but allowing candidates to make South Carolina or Nevada more significant as well, thus increasing diversity of voices?