Sweet Carolina

Primaries never sounded so good

THERE WAS a lot of ink spilled this past week over the national Democratic Party moving South Carolina to the front of the line for next cycle’s presidential primaries. It was either the right thing to do, or, if you’re from Iowa, the end of everything everywhere. Folks in Des Moines might want to try decaf.

Fair-minded Americans, and some of the rest of us, have been pushing for this kind of change for decades. The Republican Party should follow the lead and get out of the Iowa-New Hampshire habit/trick/trap.

Despite what you might hear from some more northern precincts, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries aren’t written into the Constitution. The Founders didn’t provide some sort of mandate that those states be first. The Founders didn’t even have both of them as states. And Iowa didn’t jump in front of the line until the Nixon years.

But those two states have seemingly convinced major-party candidates that to suggest other states should have an early say in presidential primaries violates some sort of American pact. Hint: It doesn’t.

(As another example of hubris in those states, lawmakers in each have written state laws to require them to go first. But what if the major parties disagree? A law passed in Concord isn’t going to stop precinct captains in Nevada or Florida.)

So the Democrats have decided to let South Carolina go first next time. Good on the donkeys! Now the elephants should do the same.

For all the shameless pandering in the last week, this Democrat Party decision is the right one, and has nothing at all to do with race or racism. Vermont and Maine are lily-white too, but they should get their turns in the front as well.

No two states in the union should have ever been given as much power to pick presidents as Iowa and New Hampshire. Sometimes candidates drop out of the national race before even 1 percent of U.S. voters have had a say.

You know, Arkansas would like to have an opportunity to vote for our favorite presidential candidates, too, and not have half of them drop out before they make the first visit to Little Rock. Fact is, folks in Jonesboro and Texarkana and El Dorado might like to meet these folks one-on-one, too. We have cafes and elementary school auditoriums every bit as good as the ones in Cedar Rapids.

But the most fair system might be something we call the John McCain Plan, because we think we heard it from him first: The country should be divvied up into four quadrants—northeast, southeast, southwest, northwest. Each section should get to have its own Super Tuesday—and go first—every four years. The order would rotate each presidential cycle. That way, the nation gets to pick the nominees, not just two small snowy states. Or as explained to us in kindergarten, take turns.

Party bosses in those two “traditional” early states have warned candidates before: Campaign in any state that tries to leap-frog us, and you’ll hurt your chances here. In other words, that’s a nice campaign you got going over there. Be a shame if anything happened to it . . . .

Now the Democratic Party leaders, with an assist by the president, have taken a brave step to get out of this supposed deal. The GOP should make it bipartisan. Besides, how fun would it be to have the next president photographed at a coon supper in Gillett every few years?