Super Tuesday may not turn out so great
Jeff Greenfield writes on Slate.com: Remember all the lamentations, the rending of garments, the gnashing of teeth over the outsize power of two small, unrepresentative states over the presidential nomination process? Well, never mind. It turns out that the apparent pattern of 2000 and 2004, when Al Gore and John Kerry won Iowa and New Hampshire and sailed to the Democratic nominations, was not a pattern but a two-off.
This year, a raft of states, big, small, and mid-size, will have a real say in choosing the candidates for president for both parties. The problem is that many would have had a far greater say had they not succumbed to mass hysteria and rushed to hold their primaries as early as possible—before or by Super Tuesday on Feb. 5. Indeed, other states that were more patient may turn out to have the loudest voices of all.
Once upon a time—from the dawn of the modern primary system in 1972 through 1992—the primaries played out through the spring. In the 1980s, the race went from a Southern "Super Tuesday" to a series of big states through March, April, and May, and finally to a California-New Jersey bicoastal finale in early June. But this year, misled by the Gore-Kerry sweeps into thinking that early momentum was a permanent, decisive element of the nominating system, some 24 states moved their primaries or caucuses to the first date permitted by the national political parties: Feb. 5. -- The Late State Gets the Worm