My Vote Means NothingNearly 20 states are moving up their primaries, but it won't change a thing.

This is the second part in a two-part article. For Part 1, click here.

(Continued from page 1)

PRINTDISCUSSE-MAILRSSRECOMMEND...SINGLE PAGE

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

Iowa has never displaced New Hampshire in importance. But it did establish itself as a secondary proving ground. Many a high-flying candidate's bid has crashed there: Democrat John Glenn's in 1984, Republican Phil Gramm's in 1996, Democrat Howard Dean's in 2004. Moreover, most of those who skipped Iowa altogether in recent decades—Al Gore in 1988, Joe Lieberman and Wesley Clark in 2004—found themselves quickly sidelined.

If Iowa managed to establish itself as a junior partner to New Hampshire in certifying front-runners, the much-hailed Southern regional primary that was supposed to counteract New Hampshire's influence never materialized. Starting in 1980, when three Southern states held early primaries in an effort to help Carter fend off Kennedy's challenge, Dixie Democrats hoped to cobble together a regional primary to balance the effects of the Midwest's taste for populists and New England's preference for liberals. In 1984, pundits began to speak of "Super Tuesday"—a date soon after the New Hampshire contest on which multiple states scheduled primaries—emphasizing the importance of the Southern states voting that day. But other states outside Dixie also piled on. By 1988, Super Tuesday had expanded so much as to dilute any regional influence. Thus, while Al Gore, who had done poorly in New Hampshire, won several contests that day, so did Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, the overall front-runner. Thereafter, he faced no serious threat to his nomination.

Super Tuesday—like so much in the history of presidential primaries—has backfired. The greater the number of states that voted in the mega-primary, it turned out, the harder it became for candidates to personally campaign or even to spend money in all of them. Thus, "free media"—evening news coverage, magazine features, newspaper op-eds—became the key to scoring across-the-board victories on Super Tuesday or other early multiprimary days. And the key to getting free media turned out to be … winning Iowa and New Hampshire.

Obviously, no one can predict with confidence how this year's heavy front-loading will play out. But the crowding of early primary dates seems just as likely to reinforce New Hampshire's kingmaking mystique, or Iowa's, as to strip it away. If so, the only difference would be that this year, after Feb. 5, the time between the effective end of the nomination campaign and the national conventions will seem all the more protracted and all the more lifeless than it has in the past.

PRINTE-MAILRECOMMEND...RSS

FacebookMySpace Mixx Digg Reddit del.icio.us Furl Ma.gnolia SphereStumbleUponCLOSE

David Greenberg, a professor of history and media studies at Rutgers and author of three books of political history, has written the "History Lesson" column since 1998.

Illustration by Rob Donnelly.

SPONSORED CONTENT

• The Old Soldier Hasn't Died
  Forget about McChrystal; Obama's real problem is MacArthurism.
  David Greenberg | Oct. 9, 2009
• The Obama Haters
  We still don't understand how fringe conservatism went mainstream.
  David Greenberg | Sept. 23, 2009
• Specter's Shadow
  Why Arlen Specter's defection should terrify the GOP.
  David Greenberg | April 29, 2009
• Search for more History Lesson articles
• Subscribe to the History Lesson RSS feed
• View our complete History Lesson archive