Early voting leaves no time for issues

by J Scott Christianson, Columbia Daily Tribune Columnist

Super-Tuesday, Super-Duper Tuesday, Tsunami Tuesday. Whatever you call it, today is the big day. Record turnouts are expected here in Missouri and in the 21 other states that are voting today. Most likely, the Democratic and Republican nominees will be chosen by the end of the night, effectively ending the presidential nomination process a full seven months before the party conventions and nine months before the general election.

Despite the excitement that today’s election day brings, there are some very big problems with our current primary process, and it is becoming clear that this method of choosing nominees is increasingly undemocratic.

The biggest problem with the current process is front-loading: choosing nearly half of the delegates in one early election. This quickened primary timeline leaves a lot of voters out of the process entirely and allows only those candidates who can raise a lot of money to compete. Candidates who have big money are more likely to succeed in these front-loaded primaries, whereas a candidate who has big ideas that might begin to resonate with voters over several months doesn’t have enough time to get his or her message out.

Front-loading also causes an over- emphasis on the states that vote earlier, namely Iowa and New Hampshire, because these early wins can be translated into campaign donations and media coverage.

This primary schedule also favors big money over big ideas in other ways. The nominees chosen today will have the nine months between now and the general election when they don’t have to court voters face to face. Instead, they will spend most of that time courting big donors to raise money for running campaign commercials in the seven to nine “battleground states” where the election will be decided. And despite all the hype about small donors in recent political campaigns, it is still the large donors who provide the bulk of the cash to run campaigns and have the most access to candidates and officeholders.

Media outlets encourage the acceleration of the primary schedule by covering the election only as a horse race. They refuse to take the time to explain the intricacies of policy and government to the voters or to provide more than a sound bite of coverage at a time. Media owners seem to like the accelerated schedule that emphasizes big money and big media buys; every election is more and more…