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The Future of First in the Nation
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 This weekend, the DNC's rules committee meets to put the final touches on its plan for the 2008 nominating calendar. Word is that a western state or Washington DC's caucus will be placed between Iowa's "First in the Nation" caucus and New Hampshire's "First in the Nation" primary, and a southern state's primary will be placed right after New Hampshire's. Still, that's not the end of the story for New Hampshire, only the beginning, as talk of moving New Hampshire's primary up, even before Iowa's "First in the Nation" caucus is being considered. We'll look at the possibilities of the new DNC primary calendar, its effect on our own primary and what Democratic leaders plan to do to save the tradition of our "First in the Nation" status. Laura's guests are Dante Scala, Associate Professor of Politics at Saint Anselm College and author of "Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics. He also writes a political blog called GRANITEPROF. Representative Jim Splaine, State Representative of Portsmouth and Newington, who sponsored 1975 and 1999 legislation that required New Hampshire to be First in the Nation Primary. Jim Splaine writes about politics for a blog for the NH Insider. We'll also be joined by Ken Rudin, Political Editor for National Public radio and writer of the Political Junkie column for NPR.org. David Yepsen, Political Columnist for the Des Moines Register and Kari Chisholm, A Political Reporter in Portland, Oregon and Publisher of the WesternDemocrat.com, A website used to promote the Western United State's political influence.
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Laura, I was very discouraged this morning on the exchange. I called with what I think is an extremely important point which is always overlooked in all these discussions about the primaries and caucuses, and I sat on hold for 20 minutes while you and your guests said the same things over and over again until your producer got on the phone and gave me a curt "David, we're out of time." I thought the Exchange was to allow the listeners a chance to air their thoughts as well as to let you and your guests air your own thoughts. While I was listening, I don't think there were more than 2 phone calls taken, but I admit that I was unable to listen to the first 10 minutes so maybe you had some on then.
My point (and I readily accept that my thoughts aren't always very important but in this case I think it is):
The Democratic and Republican parties are NOT part of our federal government or state governments in any consitutional manner. They are private organizations established for the sole purposes of getting their candidates elected and getting their legislative agendas passed. As such, I feel that none of my tax dollars nor my state or federal government's valuable and expensive time should be wasted in trying to help them sort out their problems.
This "institutionalizing" in a semi-governmental manner of these two parties is what has led to many of the problems we see, where both parties are so out of touch with the citizens of this country as to make for a great comedy if they didn't have such a major impact on all our lives.
The NH State Attorney General shouldn't be entering the fray, nor should the NH State legislature be passing any bills guaranteeing any first-in-the-nation primary for any political party or parties. The State of NH doesn't pay for any Libertarian state primary nor any Green Party state primary, and I feel it is a gross misuse of my tax dollars that we have to pay for the Democratic and Republican party primaries. Schools are closed so that voting can take place there -- the parties don't recompense the school districts for that.
In short, it is time to stop treating the Democratic and Republican parties as if they are part of the federal or state governments, and let them fund and schedule their own primaries as they see fit.
There are far more important things, such as New Hampshire's inability to come up with a consitutional way to pay for education which should be occupying our government's time, not whether we have to move our primary 5 years before the election year just to guarantee that we're first in the nation. (That last was hyperbole, which I know doesn't always come across in these sorts of messages.)
I would dearly love for you to hold a show on why it is time to stop lionizing these two parties on a governmental level and open the electoral process to other parties, with each party paying all of the expenses necessary for it's nomination process, including the holding of primaries.
Thank you for reading this far!
David H. Bailey
Nashua
dhbailey@davidbaileymusicstudio.com