America’s electoral mess.

From YAHOO! News:

South Carolina is poised to hold its Republican presidential primary earlier than Feb. 2, 2008, likely in mid-January, a move that is expected to push New Hampshire and Iowa to follow suit.

Such shifts could mean the first nominating contest could take place in December of 2007, in just four months.

This, of course, is being done by South Carolina Republicans to ensure that its primary remains the first in the south. New Hampshire, as not to have it’s place as the first primary in the nation taken, will move it’s primary up to around January 8th. The last casualty of this sad political domino effect will be Iowa. Iowa, of course, has a famous caucus which marks the definitive start of the selection process.

That will have to be moved back in order to keep a safe distance from South Carolina and New Hampshire, because, let’s face it, having presidential front-runners worship the ground you walk on just because that ground happens to be in Iowa is a pretty sweet deal.

Iowans recognize the luxuries associated with having presidential hopefuls desperately clamor for their votes. Promises are made, individual stories are heard, hands are shaken, and babies are posed with in nauseatingly corny photos. That’s why Iowa wants to make sure that they fall comfortably first on the primary/caucus calendar.

But, just how comfortably do they hope to lead the pack? According to Republican officials, the South Carolina and New Hampshire primary shifts would result in Iowa’s caucus being held on or around December 17th of this year. That, my friends, is lunacy. Immediately upon hearing of this possibility, I pulled up a VQR essay written by a certain Larry Sabato. It’s called “America’s Missing Constitutional Link,” and is the finest piece of writing on America’s broken presidential selection process that I’ve ever read.

The essay was written last year, and makes the following point, which turned out to be quite prescient:

The truth is that Iowa and New Hampshire have a franchise they are determined to keep at all costs. New Hampshire even has a law that requires its secretary of state to do whatever is necessary to keep its primary first, and Secretary William Galvin has threatened, if needed, to move the New Hampshire primary back into the calendar year before the presidential election to fulfill his mandate. No doubt Iowa would do the same. And we think the process takes too long already?

If you have time, read the entire essay. It’s lengthy, but incredibly informative. It says everything that I could ever think to say about the cons of our truly ridiculous, front-loaded selection process. Furthermore, Mr. Sabato details an ingenious plan to shorten the process, and break the Iowa/New Hampshire presidential selection “hammerlock” once and for all.

The current system is one that gives the shaft to every state state in the nation not fortunate enough to be Iowa, New Hampshire, and, to a lesser extent, South Carolina. Why aren’t candidates falling over themselves to talk to Virginians like myself and most of my readers? Why aren’t candidates dropping in on my local diner? I’m not suggesting that candidates have a responsibility to stump for votes in every one of our great nation’s localities, but they do have the responsibility to make it less obvious that they care more about the electorates of Iowa and New Hampshire than those of the rest of the country.

However, presidential candidates will consistently care more about Iowa and New Hampshire as long as we have a system that gives those two states the awesome power to, essentially, choose our president. Perhaps calls for reform will increase in volume should America witness a December 17th Iowa Caucus. Maybe that’s the silver lining.