Is there really any other way to phrase it? We supposedly live in a democracy, but when the Democratic Party vote to slightly expand suffrage in that democracy,
New Hampshire throws a fit and demands that its votes should count more:
Secretary of State William Gardner promised yesterday he will not allow the traditional key role of New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation Presidential primary to be diminished by a proposed Democratic National Committee rule change.
The DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted 23-3 to push New Hampshire to third place in the 2008 Presidential nominating lineup. The vote recommended that the full DNC authorize an additional caucus between Iowa's leadoff caucus and the New Hampshire primary and an additional primary after New Hampshire's contest but before Feb. 5, 2008.
State law allows Gardner to jump the date of the primary ahead of any "similar election" scheduled less than seven days after the primary.
Let me rephrase that last sentence to reflect reality:
State law allows New Hampshire to have its votes count more than those of people in other states.
The DNC is doing the right thing here. We still have a long way to go before achieving full intra-party democracy, but this is a step in the right direction (in my opinion,
the California plan is the final step). I fail to see why residents of New Hampshire should have more say over the direction of the Democratic Party than people who live on my block in Philly. But politicians in New Hampshire think they should.
New Hampshire is simply acting like any other privileged class has acted throughout history when its un-democratic privilege is under threat. Their arguments in defense of why they should have that privilege are always connected either to a sense of elitism where New Hampshire residents are somehow better able to make decisions than people who live outside of New Hampshire, or to the always anti-democratic appeals to "tradition" where the desires of those alive now are considered worthless when compared to the desires of those who lived in the past. . I'd like to see how New Hampshire reacts when specific states are named to hold caucuses just before and just after the New Hampshire primary. Let's see them justify to the nation that New Hampshire residents are superior to, say residents of Nevada, and thus they should be given more say in nominating our next President. For future reference, I'll give everyone a translation of the reaction of New Hampshire's politicians right now:
Today, the Secretary of State of New Hampshire declared that residents of New Hampshire are better qualified to choose our next President than residents in (fill in state name here). He cited tradition claiming that people have always believed that New Hampshire residents are better suited to the task than residents of (insert state name here), since tradition dictates that such people lack the cranial capacity to participate within a democratic process. He then stated that in lieu of a proposed caucus, residents of (insert state name here) should "eat cake."
Get past it New Hampshire. Your residents should not have a special privilege when it comes to determining our Presidents.
Update: I am clearly in an aggressive mood today, so let me rephrase what I said above in what is perhaps a less explosive fashion:
No group of Americans should have a permanent, legally enshrined privilege to have more say over who becomes the next President than other people. This is what we as Americans have fought against for centuries. It is why we fought for our independence from the United Kingdom. It is why we fought the civil war. It is why we fought for women's suffrage. It is why we fought for popular election of Senators. It is why we fought for people who did not own land to have the right to vote. It is why we fought to end segregation. However, having the New Hampshire primary always come first does the exact opposite. It legally enshrines residents of New Hampshire with more of a say in who determines our next President than Americans who happen to live in other states.
Caucuses are a bad form of democratic representation. .Democracy should not just be played out in TV ads. However, the solution is not to give residents of New Hampshire a permanent privilege to have more say over who becomes our next President than people who live elsewhere.
In a democracy, it really is that simple. In a Democratic Party where we are complaining about a possible DSCC thwarting of intra-party democracy to support someone other than the Democratic nominee, it is also that simple. We cannot decry a lack of democracy, both national and intra-party, in some places and then praise it in others. New Hampshire's permanent first in the nation status must go, for the good of democracy.
