California and 2008 primary

California's 2008 primary was moved up from its usual time in June to February 5th. This is an almost 4 month move up, which is supposed to give California a greater, more influential role in the outcome of the 2008 primaries. I commend the Governor's efforts, but I am not sure how much this will help.

The 2008 primary season will be much different than 2004 or even earlier years not just because of California, but several states are moving their primaries. South Carolina has moved it's primary to January 29th, supposedly in an effort to have African-Americans better represented. That's not really effective though, because South Carolina as a whole does not represent the US very well, and if the goal is to give African-Americans better representation in the primary process, well there's plenty of other states with substantial African-American populations. States like Louisiana and Mississippi have an almost 50% greater proportion of African-Americans than South Carolina, according to the latest BLS statistics.

The Nevada caucus moved up to January 19th to give the Hispanic voters more influence, but again there are states with a greater proportion of Hispanics, like California & Texas. New Mexico's population is 45% Hispanic compared to Nevada's 22%.

Besides these, New Hampshire & Iowa are still first. I think it's an unfair system because the people living in these two states are NOT very representative of most Americans. Since these are small states, campaigning takes place on a much more personal scale, while it sounds appealing, it's actually a bad thing. It's impractical, this is a presidential election, for candidates to go meet & shake hands with nearly every person in the state for a mere 3 delegates from NH & IA? Why do middle class whites on the east coast get this opportunity, and larger states like CA and even Texas do not? It is very undemocratic in my opinion to give this much influence to one small sector of the US population- lower middle class whites. CA has more delegates/electoral votes (general) than every state west of the Mississippi River combined (excluding Texas), it should be more influential in the nominating process as well. It is more practical for candidates to spend their time in states like CA, TX & NY because they would be reaching out to not just more people, but also more diverse people in the same time.

CA's influence even with this move up to February 5th, is further weakened by the fact that 10+ states are moving their primary to the same day. CA should be the second, or maybe even first primary without other states holding their primaries on the same day.


http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/15/california.primary/index.html