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Show High Aspirations in the Rocky Mountains: The Push for a Western Region Presidential Primary Peter C. Carlston Shifting Primary Dates The costs related to shifting primary dates have been a major stumbling block to movements for a regional primary. "The Legislature will ultimately decide if the shift is worth the cost," said Sheehan (1998b). However, states such as Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and North Dakota have used successfully an all mail balloting system; Oregon conducted a special mail-in election for a senator in which it saved over $1 million (Werner 1996). Nevertheless, one potential drawback of the mail-in balloting is pointed out by Kelleen Potter, Elections Director of the Lt. Governor's office. Referring to the 3-4 week trickling in of mail-in ballots, she speculates, "The candidates probably wouldn't come to Utah -the spread-out balloting could diffuse their efforts to create trends and strong victories upon which to build" (1998). Another consideration of election costs is that regardless of what joint date is agreed upon, each individual state will deal with the changes of its own system independently of the others. Some states probably will opt to shift their local primaries to be held in conjunction with the new presidential primaries, while other states will keep the local primaries at the same date and shift only the presidential primary, thereby increasing election costs. Potter states that Utah would not shift the dates of other state primaries, only that of the presidential primary (Potter 1998). Current state trends and studies by political scientists such as Gurian (1991, 1993, 1998) suggest that the most effective way for a state to gain more attention in presidential candidate nomination campaigns is to set itself apart, not merely crowd its primary near the beginning of the campaign. Getting the jump on other states seems to be the key. State Parties Some assert that financial implications for parties are a part of the case for a western regional primary. Todd Taylor, Executive Director of the Utah Democratic State Committee, expressed the same view as his Republican counterpart Spencer Stokes that the fundraising benefits of having big-name candidates come to Utah are very attractive. For example, because the Democratic Party held its own early regional primary in 1992, prominent candidates and public figures such as Jerry Brown and Hillary Clinton included Utah on their campaign trails. Obviously, big names provide a bigger draw to fundraising banquets and similar events. Brown and Clinton probably would not have come if Utah had conducted a primary independently of the other western states (Taylor 1998). Alternatives Calls for reform of the presidential nomination process have come from all quarters-media, politics, and academia 6 New Hampshire state law specifies its primaries are to he held on the first Tuesday of March, ot "on the Tuesday preceding any 'similar election'" (quoted in Buell 1987, 66). Other states' efforts to precede NH have met determined opposition and ultimate failure. (Haskell 1996b, 72). The following includes a brief look at some of the many different reforms which have been tossed around the political arena. "Leapfrog" to an Earlier Date-Utah "Trying to out-New Hampshire New Hampshire" is not the goal of the west (Leavitt 1998) and it will not work6; Utah's small delegation does not have the political heft to challenge that tradition, and as an October 4, 1997 Salt Lake Tribune Editorial states, "Scheduling primary dates sooner doesn't help because Western states individually would still lack sufficient delegate votes in any particular party to make serious candidate campaigning hereabouts worthwhile." However, if the western states joined their votes together, would the shift to an earlier date be effective? Spread-Oit Selections of Delegates A different view of the issue of timing has been addressed by the Republican National Committee, as related by Spencer Stokes of the Utah Republican Party. He refers to the difficulties of earlier and earlier campaigns. "These campaigns don't come cheap," he says. "The RNC wants to give candidates more time to stump around the country, with later primary dates, so that they won't need to begin two years in ad-vance"(1998). The RNC has expressed willingness to reward states that hold later, independent primaries with more delegate votes. Said Shaun Tuffnell, spokesman for the RNC, "Early primaries are rough on candidates with low funds and low name recognition. If all states were to spread their primaries over the election year, it would be better for the democratic process" (1998). David Magleby, a nationally respected political scientist, does not like presidential primaries. He favors a spread-out caucus system, which "leads to the state party conventions, which narrows the field of candidates and leads to national conventions" (Mullen 1998). The Utah Democrat posits that the use of caucuses "allows for party machine involvement as well as voter participation" (1998). Political scientist John Haskell, in his book, Fundamentally Flawed: Understanding and Reforming Presidential Primaries, summed up three popular proposals for reform. What follows is a brief summary of the ideas that Haskell out-lines (1996b, 72-78, 121-135). National Primary The institution of a national primary would require an immense departure from the current system. All state delegate selections events would be merged to the first week of June. National party conventions would still be held in July and August, but they would serve only to ratify the nominations and party platforms, a system which differs just slightly from the function of recent conventions. The national parties would have to enforce the single day selections, with the delegates determined by the outcomes of proportional votes of each state. Some suggest that Congress 46: |