Push For Primary Calendar Changes Goes On

This story was written by CBSNews.com political reporter David Miller.

Instead of a series of small states effectively deciding the nominations of both parties -- standard practice for the past few cycles -- 2008 has seen both Democrats and Republicans emerge from those early battles without a clear front-runner. And Super Tuesday, bigger and earlier than ever this year, was not the mere coronation it has been in the past. Only after it was over was John McCain able to claim the mantle of Republican front-runner. In the Democratic race, it took another week's worth of contests for Barack Obama to establish himself as his party's leading candidate.

Overall, small states have had a big role in the process, from the initial contests in Iowa and New Hampshire to post-Super Tuesday caucuses in Nebraska and Maine. Yet the big states can't say they were left out this time: California was the center of attention heading into Feb. 5, Florida gave McCain a crucial momentum boost, and Texas and Ohio could effectively decide the Democratic nomination on March 4 -- if Hillary Clinton wins both, Pennsylvania might get to play a role, too.

At the time that California and other states were moving up their primaries, numerous critics said the system being created was unfair to voters, unfair to candidates, and, sometimes, flat out un-American because it would put too much emphasis on money and force too many people to decide too quickly.

But the way in which the presidential race has played out -- with high voter interest and turnout -- would seem to vindicate those who pushed for a campaign calendar that started earlier than ever with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and came to a climax when 24 states voted on Super Tuesday, practically a national primary.

"I am encouraged not just by the voter turnout but by the excitement," said California state Sen. Ron Calderon, who sponsored the legislation to move his state's primary to Feb. 5, passage of which inspired many other states to do the same. "The early primary has ignited something in the younger voter. I think the message got out rather clearly to the disenfranchised voters. They usually felt they didn't have any say in who the presidential nominee is going to be."

Calderon, a Democrat, said he would like to take Super Tuesday a step further in the future and establish a true national primary day. But he might be in the minority -- even those who admit that Super Tuesday and the rest of the calendar worked out pretty well this year say that's partially due to unique circumstances.

Going into 2008, it was already known that the country was facing its first election in decades without an incumbent president or vice president running. But then both parties remained without a front-runner for awhile, thanks to a muddled, fractured GOP field and the presence of two Democrats, Clinton and Obama, who both had the organization and resources for the long haul.

Those who are still pushing for major revisions to the nominating calendar are arguing, basically, that in 2008 the system worked in spite of itself.

"If it's a contested race you see voter turnout go up. If it's a lopsided kind of race you see turnout go down," said Todd Rokita, president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, which is promoting a rotating, regional primary system. "The campaigns and personalities have something to do with it."

Drastic changes are still needed to prevent the chaos and leap-frogging among states that resulted in this year's system, Rokita said.

"We still have a gold rush mentality to this process. What we need to do is bring civility and order to it," said Rokita, a Republican who oversees elections in Indiana. "Effectively, half the voters in the country are disenfranchised by this."

He and other state officials are still pushing for a rotating, regional primary in which, after Iowa and New Hampshire, whole regions of the country hold primaries simultaneously, with one region voting every few weeks.

"It's the regional aspect that has a lot of benefit because you get to see the candidates more and they're not zig-zagging across the country on planes like mad hatters," Rokita said.

The rotating regional primary is one of five plans a Republican National Committee panel will consider when it meets in early April. Among them are the "Delaware plan," which places an emphasis on smaller states, the "Michigan plan" in which states' primary dates are determined by lottery, and the "Texas plan," which attempts to create a rotation among groups of demographically diverse states of varying size.

The chairman of the RNC's Standing Committee on Rules, David Norcross, while claiming to have no strong preference for any plan, said the panel's priorities are clear.

"There were a couple people at the last meeting who took the position that there was a lot of competition and a lot of people got to vote and it was a close race in the beginning and maybe it isn't broken," he said. "But whatever you say, it started too early, in my view and probably was over in six weeks. That's pretty quick. I think the committee will likely adopt a change."

Norcross said it's possible the committee could also increase penalties on states that violate rules by scheduling primaries too early. Even though the RNC stripped Florida of 50 percent of its delegates, the contest was still highly contested and influential. He said that penalty could be increased to 100 percent of delegates -- a punishment identical to the one Democrats inflicted on Michigan and Florida, which has spawned a controversy on how to deal with those states at the Democratic National Convention.

While both parties have already started sparring as the general election nears, they have held informal talks aimed at coming together behind a single plan for nominating contests in 2012. The problem is that while the GOP will adopt its 2012 plan at its convention this year, Democrats won't figure out their plan until after the election.

"If we went ahead and did X and they wanted to adopt X that'd be fine," Norcross said. "If there's something wrong with X, then they'd say 'It'd be nice to be together but we're not going to do that.'"

The Democratic National Committee, so far, isn't letting on much about what strategy it favors, if any. Spokeswoman Stacie Paxton said the party's main concern for now is the general election, though she hinted that changes made to the 2008 calendar are here to stay.

"After a lengthy process, we added South Carolina and Nevada to the pre-window period to ensure more regional and ethnic diversity in the early nominating process," Paxton said. "That was a good first step."

Concerns remain that all these efforts may not pay off. For example, the system Rokita and other state election officials have been promoting has been around for 10 years. And with only one party likely to face a nomination fight in 2012, the desire to adopt a bipartisan solution may dissipate.

Rokita said he hopes otherwise.

"We're optimistic," he said. "A reform like this, to be successful, truly needs the engagement of both parties. Both parties need to be engaged in this and I hope both parties come to the table. I think it would be a wonderful show of unity."
By David Miller