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his young daughter in Iowa schools. All that to prove to Iowans how much he loves the Hawkeye State and what does he get in return, probably a 5th or 6th place finish in low single digits.
In an effort to get more publicity and more influence in the nominating process about half the states have either moved up their presidential primary dates or tried to do so with the result being a process so front-loaded and expensive so as to cause the process to be disfigured. Indeed, with the patchwork of delegate selection processes so Byzantine the entire nominating process resembled a product from Dr. Frankenstein's basement.
Several solutions from scholars and congressmen alike are trying to make sense of the nominating procedures, some of which are on the bill drafting table in Washington ready for introduction in January.
Proposals differ in detail but a couple of the more likely scenarios to make it into the halls of Congress are suggestions to group states according to size in five groups of ten, holding a group primary every month and have the groups rotate primary dates every four years. Other possibilities suggest a lottery to select the order of state presidential preference dates.
There are other worthy proposals for consideration out there, all of which better than the present system by light years.
In all probability nothing will happen for two basic reasons: 1) it makes too much sense and 2) somebody, somewhere -- probably in Iowa or New Hampshire -- will challenge the validity of the federal government setting state election dates and it will ultimately go to the Supreme Court and probably struck down.
The next president will be sworn in at 12 o'clock noon, Jan. 20, 2009.
The next nominating process will probably begin at 12:01 p.m., Jan. 20, 2009.
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