Does South Carolina have too much, too little, or an ok amount of influence on who gets nominated?

[AlterEgo]

Too much, and Iowa/New Hampshire/Nevada also have too much.

We need a national all at once primary.

A single national primary day over-advantages establishment candidates with deep donor pockets and strong name recognition. Puts in major barriers to lesser-know candidates.

[AlterEgo]

Too much, and Iowa/New Hampshire/Nevada also have too much.

We need a national all at once primary.

A single national primary day over-advantages establishment candidates with deep donor pockets and strong name recognition. Puts in major barriers to lesser-know candidates.

So? Lesser known candidates haven't gotten the nomination since 1976. Why should we bend over backwards to help them? This whole system is silly.

We give Iowa too much power with their undemocratic caucuses (that they can't even do right) just to give the Tim Ryan's and John Delaney's a nonexistent chance.

Democrats spent months fighting over Iowa and New Hampshire, states that actually did jacksh**t in saying who the nominee was. They didn't stop Joe Biden despite not even awarding delegates to him!

We should have a national primary day where every state goes on the same day, no caucuses.

Well, personally, I'd argue that Democrats gave their lesser-known candidate their nomination in 2008. And to a lesser extent 1992.

[AlterEgo]

Too much, and Iowa/New Hampshire/Nevada also have too much.

We need a national all at once primary.

A single national primary day over-advantages establishment candidates with deep donor pockets and strong name recognition. Puts in major barriers to lesser-know candidates.

So? Lesser known candidates haven't gotten the nomination since 1976. Why should we bend over backwards to help them? This whole system is silly.

We give Iowa too much power with their undemocratic caucuses (that they can't even do right) just to give the Tim Ryan's and John Delaney's a nonexistent chance.

Democrats spent months fighting over Iowa and New Hampshire, states that actually did jacksh**t in saying who the nominee was. They didn't stop Joe Biden despite not even awarding delegates to him!

We should have a national primary day where every state goes on the same day, no caucuses.

Well, personally, I'd argue that Democrats gave their lesser-known candidate their nomination in 2008. And to a lesser extent 1992.

Obama wasn’t a unknown candidate, he gave the keynote address at the 2004 DNC. He only ran because Henry Reid and Chuck Schumer begged him, believing Hillary was weak. When the two highest ranking senate democrats want you, you aren’t a nobody like Tim Ryan was in 2020.

Bill Clinton gave the keynote in 1988 and was a popular governor from a region that was heavily heading right. Michael Dukakis said in an interview in that election that he would like to see Bill Clinton run in 1996 after his two terms were up (ha). Mario Cuomo, the man everyone assumed would be the next nominee, urged Clinton to run

The last time a nobody won was 1976 with Jimmy Carter. The world is very different. He didn’t have the internet or cable news. The primary system was still new and several candidates didn’t fully understand it. Carter rented some cheap motel room in Iowa with his own savings and literally went door to door himself in Iowa because he didn’t have much staff at first. That’s how he won the first few states and built a lot of momentum.

The point of having IW/NH/SC/NV go first is to give a nobody a chance to live in these states. But that hasn’t happened in 50 years. While Clinton and Obama didn’t start off as front runners, they were still national figures with a base.

Giving these four states so much power (especially Iowa’s umdemocratic caucus) for an argument that isn’t true for 50 years is just foolish

Meh. Sure the '04 Keynote vaulted Obama forward in a lot of circles, but those are typical insiders and establishment, maybe some highly-engaged rank-and-file. An averagely engaged Democrat may have known Obama's name after that but it's not like that vaulted him to instant name recognition with the vast majority of the overall electorate.

Heading into the '92 election, punditry and conventional wisdom believed that HW was heavily favored. While Clinton had been receiving some buzz from within the party, most of the big names thought it best to wait until '96. It's not like governor of AR gets you huge national name recognition among the average voter, especially in the '80s. Clinton was running neck-and-neck with Tsongas until Super Tuesday, when he cleaned up in the South, thereby solidifying momentum and front-runner status for the remainder of the primary.

As for Iowa's caucuses being "undemocratic:" Oh well? We have this idea that primaries are "voting" and therefore should be "democratic." It's not really voting. It's just how a party chooses their candidate. They could go back to smoke-filled rooms if they wanted. Personally, while I do like to see rank-and-file party members have a voice for their candidate, I abhor open primaries.

Finally, we're just discussing opinions, aka no right or wrong. I think using hyperbolic words like "foolish" to describe another opinion is a bit over the top.

[AlterEgo]

You're not entirely wrong in the first paragraph, although I will say that, at least in the mid-20th Century, when we had party insiders choosing candidates in smoke-filled rooms general election turnout was much higher. So it's hard to say it's the primary system that has created the until-recent sense of apathy. Now, voters are fairly used to the current system, so going back to the old ways would certainly turn a number of people off.

Now, I'm certainly not advocating for a return to smoke-filled rooms. As I said previously, I think it is a good thing that rank-and-file members of a party get to choose THEIR candidate for said party. The Democratic candidate for president doesn't belong to the Republicans or to NPAs. I get the argument that we're all going to have to vote for one of two candidates, more or less, but I just believe that you should have a stake in the party you're choosing candidates for. Again, primaries are not "elections"; they're nominations.

But, we've kinda gotten off track from the national primary day argument. As to Obama not being a lesser know candidate: Polling of Democrats from late-2006 showed Obama around 12%, with HRC around 35%. He pulled into the mid-20s by about March 2007, which is where he stayed for about the next 10-11 months. He showed a big boost following the early primaries/caucuses, finally topping 30%. He has a small flatline around 32% there. But then he holds his own on Super Tuesday in a virtual dead heat (HRC took 20 more delegates out of the day, with Obama taking total states 13-10). But then he mops up in the rest of the February contests, passes Clinton's poll numbers around the third week of Feb, and hits 50% around the first week of March.

Could this have happened with a single primary day? I'd argue no. Seeing him as a real, viable candidate as the primaries went on probably convinced a lot of people to select him that may have been concerned with electability otherwise. In what was already a super-tight race, I'd imagine that without the ability to build that momentum, there would have been enough Democrats who had electability concerns to put HRC over the top if all primaries were held the same day.

Another issue is that no candidates are really forced to drop out. Typically, by the end of a primary we're down to a two-way race. If no one is really forced to drop out due to the fact that they are not picking up delegates and, therefore, momentum, we're left with 3 or more candidates--vastly increasing the odds that no candidate gets a majority. Now we have a brokered/contested convention, and we're back to those metaphorical smoke-filled rooms.

I also don't particularly like the argument that a drawn-out primary system hasn't helped any lesser-know candidates win. Not everything about a campaign is about winning or losing. Take the Sanders' candidacy for instance. His ability to get out there and espouse his stances has certainly had a influence on the Democratic Party.