we should be open to a ton of suggestions.

should be well positioned for the G.E.

otherwise it would be a terrific choice.

or even the first group of states?

The primary process of having SOME "Special" states getting to go
first (or before other states) is patently discriminatory, creating
over-preening "special" states that get all the media attention,
while other states (and their citizens) can only watch from afar,
and feel relatively impotent politically, which accounts for a lot
of the apathy and non-participation of voters. It's just plain
wrong.

I don't give a rat's ass about "tradition" and "the way it's always
been" ... fuck that.

would take as long as the general and in all the states.

but still not a compelling reason to do it the way we do
it today, still.

Hell the primary system was designed to elect presidents
before we had jet transport, TV, computers, social media etc.
It MAY have made practical sense THEN, but not in today's
"everything's instant" socio-political milieu.

system though. Using media would certainly be easier for our candidates.

On a slightly more serious note, I suspect Hodor and Voldemort will be in violent agreement with this.

representative of rural America when most of the people live in cities.

Phil Keisling was Sec. of State in Oregon when he wrote this in NYTimes in 2010. I think I agree
with this, in principle at least. Of course, the devil's in the details and all that too, but just sayin'

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/maybe-we-should-end-primary-elections/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/opinion/22keisling.html?scp=1&sq=phil%20kiesling&st=cse

Minnesota or Ohio it would be more balanced as an indicator.

I like the idea of Colorado or maybe even Michigan.

interaction and smaller town hall type things. it will be mostly tv ads with candidates needing to spend even more time and earlier raise money for it.

but maybe a more diverse smaller town might be a good idea.

but i don't see iowa or nh giving up being the first ones and because they are swing states(even though they lean more blue in recent years) it will probably hurt the party which takes it away.

If we put a large state first, the primaries will be even more of a fund-raising name-recognition contest than the are now. I wouldn't mind moving a more diverse state closer to the start of primary season, though.

I'm a little bothered by one part, though: "The Democratic party is the party of urban and suburban voters."

I don't think the Democratic Party, or Democrats, should brush off rural voters. I'm a rural Democrat, and I'm not alone. There is not as much diversity in my little rural community than there is in the big city over the mountains, but it's still here, and our votes still count. One of the reasons that Republicans rule too much of rural America is that they DON'T discount rural voters.

That said in defense of rural voters, I fully support making sure that there are more diverse populations in the early primary voting.

We need to have the conversation. As you say, it is too late right now, but we should have a national discussion before the next national election. They current system is repressive.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251414717

K&R

Right behind Vermont. Kinda hard to swallow that its "more Christian".

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/02/18/map-the-most-religious-states-in-america/