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I love primary season.  Last month, I kept finding myself singing "It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" while driving from mall to mall on Christmas errands, and I wasn’t prompted so much by the impending holidays as by the wall-to-wall news from Iowa percolating in through the car radio.  Once every four years, America’s generally distractible attention briefly alights on my horse-race obsession, and for a few months, I don’t feel quite as much like a trainspotter as I do when obsessing over off-year gubernatorial races.

I love primary season, and I love it in spite of the haters.   Hating on the long campaign and the intraparty vitriol is chic – nothing seems to elicit sympathetic nods from thoughtful citizens, even those who generally like politics – as a disdainful essay about the pettiness and superficiality of the process. But that’s part of the game, and if you step back and look at the campaign as a whole, it’s pretty inescapable.  The simple fact is that only a slender minority of the electorate – even the "likely voters" so omnipresent in our thoughts these days – really have the time and inclination to discern the serious policy differences between the candidates.  Consequently, most Americans vote for the candidate that they like, meaning that they vote for the candidate who was best able to use the pettiness and superficiality of the process to his or her advantage.  I’m not saying that this is a good thing – I’m just saying that it’s a big part of politics, that it’s not going anywhere, and that we’re wise to learn to live with it.  And if you can learn to love it, so much the better.

I love primary season because I learned a long time ago to love politics as theater, as sport.  Now, let me make clear right away that I also love politics because of the tremendous effect that progressive government can have on the lives of working Americans.  I believe in the power of government to change our lives for the better, and to create a nation where every citizen knows that if she works hard and plays by the rules, she’ll be able to rest easy at night knowing that she and her family have a roof over their heads, food on the table, and the ability to go to the doctor without going broke.  I’m a committed movement progressive, not a cynic.  But I do know how to enjoy the game within the game.  That’s why I had as much fun writing the Republican Cattle Calls this past year as anything else I’ve ever written for Daily Kos.  Handicapping the Republican primaries is pure spectator sport.  None of the contestants have any serious redeeming qualities; I really can’t get worked up over which one of them is best on the merits, as they’re all awful.  But it’s a lot of fun trying to peel the onion of the Republican psyche and predict which of a motley crew can secure the affections of his party.  And even though I do care about the Democrats and where they stand on various issues, I can also appreciate the relative skill with which they run their campaigns. That doesn’t make me cynical – it keeps me sane.

I love primary season more than most Kossacks, yet I hate the primary system.  I love the theater.  I love the chess match.  I love Road to the White House.  But I do believe that, as a matter of party policy, the idea of having a couple hundred thousand people who aren’t even necessarily Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire – and, to a lesser extent, Nevada and South Carolina – select my party’s nominee is completely insane, not to mention undemocratic.  I mean, the notion that one of the vaunted independents of New Hampshire – one of the dipshits who can’t decide between Obama and McCain – has more of a voting say in the leadership of my party than I do, simply because I have the misfortune to live in Colonial DC – is beyond frustrating.  It’s unacceptable.  I give thousands of dollars every year, both directly and though my union PAC, to Democratic candidates.  I’m a unionist – part of the cornerstone of Democratic electoral success.  Every fall, I canvass is the cold, rain and snow for whichever Democrat happens to be running for whichever seat is up.  I’m a charter member of the netroots.  But I have no voting say in who leads my party.

And so while I love primary season, I want to kill it.  I want to kill it dead.  I don’t want to rejigger things by rotating other, more representative, states to the front of the line, although that’d be preferable to the farce that we have today.  I don’t want to tinker with the system and still wind up with a staggered process where largely disinterested voters in successive states winnow down the field until the nominee emerges by attrition.  I want to blow the process up, empower committed Democrats, and in so doing make the Convention vital and relevant again.  And while my plan doesn’t have a chance in hell of going anywhere, discussing it is a lot more fun than trying to decide whether Michigan of New Jersey should lead off the 2012 primaries.

Here, then, is the outline of a proposed nominating process that I’d love even more than primary season.

• Members Only.  The Democratic Party is not an arm of the government.  It’s a private entity.  Yet today, the de facto leader of this private entity is chosen in significant part by people who have absolutely no allegiance to, much less membership in, the party – simply because they’re citizens of their states.  Independents are allowed to participate in the caucus/primary process in both Iowa and New Hampshire – and in Michigan, the primary is completely open, as there isn’t even party registration.  (Vote for Mitt!)  Even where the primary is closed to registered Democrats . . . well, what does that mean?  You become a registered Democrat by signing a form you pick up at the post office.  In some states, you can register as a Democrat on election day.  Being a registered Democrat says nothing about whether you’re actually a member of the Democratic Party.  It merely says that you signed a piece of paper, possibly for reasons of pure expedience.  That’s why participation in the selection of the Democratic nominee should be limited to those who actually take the affirmative step to become members of the Democratic Party -- people who believe in the principles of the Party enough to join it.  This means that the Party needs to create a basic membership option – my feeling is that anyone willing to pay $5 in annual dues should become a member, someone eligible to have a say in party decision-making.  Of course, by limiting participation to members, we’d have to . . .
• Get the government out of the system.  There’s no reason to have state and local governmental bodies conducting what is essentially an internal organizational decision.  It’s perverse.  The government doesn’t conduct union elections, or NRA elections – why ought it have a hands-on role in running an internal political party election?  The party should conduct its nomination process itself, at its own expense, and with its own rules – so long as they comport with anti-discrimination laws.  The role of the FEC in overseeing the selection process should be just that – oversight, to ensure that the election comports with anti-discrimination laws and with the party’s own bylaws.  That’s the role that the SEC plays in overseeing corporate elections, and that the Department of Labor plays in overseeing union elections.  Both agencies allow the entities operating under their watch to administer the actual election process.  But ultimately, the union or corporation, not the government, is running its own election.  Why should our party be any different?
• All at once, all by mail.  Since the party is going to be running its own convention delegate selection process, it won't have recourse to the state and county boards of elections and their touch-screen machines, and won't hold elections at the whims of attention-starved state legislatures.  This, needless to say, is a good thing.  Without interference from 50+ states, territories, and colonial capital cities, he party can construct a fair and equitable election system.  I'd propose that all delegates to the convention be selected by mail ballot during a two week period in April of the convention year.  This puts all Democrats on an even footing in influencing the process, and ensures that there's a paper trail should there be any doubt about the accuracy of the counting process.  "Surely," some of you are saying, "this system creates a big national primary where less well-funded candidates can't gain traction?"  That'd be a good point, if we were voting for candidates in my scheme.  But we wouldn't be.  We'd be voting for delegates.
• Delegates, not candidates.  This is likely to be the most controversial aspect of my proposal among Kossacks.  I want to scrap the idea of direct voting for candidates, or even for pledged slates of delegates.  Instead, I want the members of each local party organization to choose delegates from their geographic area based on who those delegates are, and the values that they promise to bring to the convention.  Why?  I have a number of reasons – but here are a few of the best.  

  A) Because removing the idea of pledged delegates allows the presidential race to develop at a slower pace, with candidates not needing to decide that they want to run two years prior to the general election, and consequently not needing to raise obscene amounts of money just after midterms.  Unpledged delegates keep the field open longer.  And that’s good for the diversity of ideas in the party.

  B) Because elimination of the direct primary tends to lessen demagoguery, mitigate the influence of big money, and encourage a focus on germane policy issues.  Party members who are savvy enough to become delegates are also savvy enough to force the candidates to camapign on real ideas and themes, not red herrings.  Now, I'm not saying that a delegate-driven process will eliminate factors such as charisma and general election viability from the calculus -- far from it. Delegates will be as susceptible to personal charm as anyone.  And we wouldn't want to eliminate charisma as a factor, in any event -- we need to win in November.  But the delegate-driven process will greatly diminish the focus on nonsense issues that confuse an unengaged electorate, and which don't contribute to nominating the best candidate.  Moreover, candidates won't have an overwhelming need to spend giant sums on broadcast media in a delegate-driven process -- and that lowers Democrats' reliance on big-money interests.

  C) Because the convention should be a a place where delegates, selected by active, engaged Democrats from throughout the nation, have a genuine discussion about who we are as a party. It shouldn't be an empty ritual, a choreographed pageant where delegates are little more than props in the coronation of a predetermined nominee.  A convention of activist Democratic delegates, rather than a single nominee chosen by apathetic voters of various political stripes, should set the direction for the party.

Of course, I can hear folks saying, "but Trapper -- this is completely antidemocratic!  You're channelling power into the hands of the elites, who undoubtedly will make up the vast majority of the delegate pool!"  That'd be a good point, except I would also . . .

• Increase the number of delegates.  Right now, there are about 4300 delegates to the 2008 convention.  I'd like to up that to about 7500 delegates.  With a number that large, we'd ensure that there are ample opportunities for everyday Democrats to represent their local party members -- after all, the total number of Democrats in Congress and the statehouses doesn't approach 7500.  Sure, elected Democrats will have an important say at the convention -- they do now, as superdelegates.  But under a delegate-driven system, they'll be joined by a large number of working Democrats.  I'd retain most of the McGovern-Fraser reforms, to ensure continuation of the diversity which has admirably characterized Democratic conventions for years.

I've got a lot more that I could write about this proposal, but it's long enough as is.   I can see a number of arguments against the delegate-driven process, but why should I poke holes in my own idea?  I'm sure that Kossacks will do a good enough job of that.