Friday, May 08, 2009

Iowa and New Hampshire Need to Go

Not from the Union, but as the "first in the nation" tests in the electoral process that leads to the selection of the Republican nominee for President.

Iowa just passed a law legalizing same sex marriage. New Hampshire's governor has a bill that passed the legislature on his desk. Even if Governor Lynch doesn't sign the bill, New Hampshire is a state with a legislature willing to legalize gay marriage. As such, it shows that both states are out of touch with the values of the "red states."

By definition, all of the Republican nominee's electoral votes, come from "red states." Since the goal of nominating a candidate for president is to get said nominee elected to the presidency, why would we want "blue states" that don't vote for Republicans getting to decide which candidates have all the momentum in the process, prior to that process getting to the red states?

Are you following me?

The problem is, the blue state republicans come from states with greater population, for the most part, than the red states. Their size allows them to throw their weight around whenever talk comes around about changing the system.

Such republicans trend more to the center than their compatriots in states that actually vote Republican. In fact, the blue state members of the Republican National Committee are for the most part the very republicans who are currently calling for the national party to move to the middle. They think their reality is the nation's reality. As such, they want the red states to get behind moderate candidates that red staters view as soft, so that we might have a chance to win in the blue states.

But the GOP will never carry New York, Massachusetts or even California. So why do the representatives to the RNC from these states holding ANY sway over the process. They should be deferring to the representatives from the red states, or at the very least, from the GOP representatives of swing states like Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Indiana.

As such, if we're looking for a candidate that can win in a national election, the states chosen to fire up the process and thus get the lion's share of the candidates' early attention should be those very swing states mentioned above. Come out of those states with the lead, and there is a good chance that the rest of the country will be happy to follow suit. Come out of Iowa and New Hampshire with a commanding lead, and thus the nomination, and you're pretty much guaranteeing those states that you count on most come election day, will be less than enthused.

In other words, Iowa and New Hampshire need to go.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

a couple of weeks ago, I had similar thoughts, but for different reasons logically speaking. My conclusion was the same. We're either both geniuses or both nuts.

Anonymous said...

are you suggesting a 'good' republican from Florida *Jeb might win the national nomination ?

the Gov.of Utah has a better chance.

it was disappointing to see that Rush could not get Hillary nominated using republican votes ?