Err, it was occupied by the axis until the end of WW2, until which it was associated with the USSR until 1948.
But really that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the American election.
So i have to ask, if the republican candidates really want a smaller government, why don't they start by getting rid of the ridiculously long primary selection process? (or reforming it at least. I can actually see why it is probably the way it is, before areoplanes for example.)
Yeah, primaries are bylaws of a political party, it isn't run by or controlled by the government. It's just how the political party determine who it's going to have run for the real elections. It's why primary voters have to be party members, registered Republicans. If it was run by the government everyone could vote and that'd be hilarious.
Not true in about half the country, hence the terms "open primary" and "closed primary". There are at least 14 states with fully open Presidential primaries and 11 with semi-open primaries (unaffiliated/independents can vote in either race). It turns out not to be such a clusterfuck after all, because the number of people willing to take time out to go trollvote in the other party's primary is actually quite small. Hell, you can't get most people to show up for their OWN party's primary. Additionally, "spoiler" votes rarely ever constitute a large enough portion to change the outcome of a race. This may actually become less true in proportional races, as one or two percentage points may mean a difference of a few delegates. But in the overall scheme of things, a handful of delegates is not going to mean much if the ACTUAL party members aren't interested in the candidate.
Also, while the primaries aren't run by the Federal government they do in fact cost a non-trivial amount of public money to stage, paid either by the state or local governments. Those voting booths don't appear out of thin air. That absolutely pointless Missouri "beauty pageant"? Estimated to cost $6-7
million of taxpayer dollars.
While we're on that topic, the National Association of Secretaries of State has been
working on a proposal to do a rotating primary pool to take some of the haphazardness out of the whole thing. They'd leave Iowa and New Hampshire untouched, but everybody else would go into one of four regional, 12-state pools based on geographic location. The primaries would be held on the first Tuesday of each month (March, April, May, June). And then each region would go on the same day. So if they had used this plan this year, for example, it would have been:
Iowa: the usual date
New Hampshire: the usual date
And let's say for argument that the rotation order is East, South, North, West (they'd actually do a lottery draw the first year to determine it).
So first Tuesday in March, all the East states vote.
First Tuesday in April, all the South states vote.
First Tuesday in May, all the North states vote.
First Tuesday in June, all the West states vote.
This still allows candidates time to focus their efforts in a relatively narrow area (a month per region), but takes a lot of the time and confusion out of things, and actually lessens the workload on candidates as they don't have to jump back and forth across the country. You don't have to choose "am I going to camp out in Arizona or Michigan?" as Santorum is currently doing.
The next election cycle, The East states would move to the back of the line and all the other regions would move up a month.
It's an interesting plan, and I like it. I doubt it'll actually ever go anywhere, because there's an entire industry of pundits and campaign strategists built upon the arcane wackiness of the American primary system. But it's still a good idea. Instead of the weird piecemeal horse race, you'd essentially have four "Super Tuesdays". And this way, no state gets chronically ignored (like North Carolina, which is damn near last in the country).
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Topic: American Election Megathread - It's Over (Read 763458 times)