Democrats, Republicans say Missouri should stay put in primary lineup

January 09, 2008 12:22 pm

— By Susan Redden and Derek Spellman
news@joplinglobe.com
When Missouri voters went to the polls Feb. 3, 2004, they were behind only their counterparts in Iowa and New Hampshire in casting ballots for presidential hopefuls.
Four other states, including Oklahoma, shared the February primary date.
What a difference four years can make.
Now, voters in eight states in addition to Iowa and New Hampshire will be making their presidential preferences known before Missouri voters go to the polls on Feb. 5.
And whereas Missouri once was among the few states with early primaries, next month residents of 20 other states will be voting at the same time in what some call “Super-Duper Tuesday.”
“I think we will get lost in the shuffle on this one,” said Tom Simpson, a professor of political science at Missouri Southern State University, of the Feb. 5 primary.
But even though many states are pushing their primaries further ahead, several local Democrats and Republicans, as well as political observers, say Missouri should stay where it is.
“I think we have got it fine the way it is,” said Charles Compton, a member of the Newton County Democratic Central Committee and a former member of the state Democratic committee.
The state of Missouri actually has moved up its presidential primary election twice in the past 10 years, said Jack Cardetti, a spokesman for the state Democratic Party.
“The problem is that everyone else did too,” he said.
Until the March 1998 primary election, Missouri made its presidential choices via party caucuses. In 1998, legislation set a presidential primary for April, then a 1999 bill moved the 2000 presidential primary to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in March. Missouri and 10 other states held presidential preference primaries on March 7, 2000, then known as Super Tuesday.
A 2002 election-reform bill moved Missouri’s primary to February, in an attempt to draw more presidential candidates to the state.
Supporters also made the argument that Missouri should be early in the lineup because the state has a track record of voting for the winning presidential candidate. Missouri has voted for the winning candidate every year since 1904 except for 1956, when Missouri chose Democrat Adlai Stevenson over incumbent President Dwight Eisenhower.
Simpson, the MSSU professor, countered that Missouri has emerged as a bellwether state only in the general election, not in the primaries. The primaries, he said, appeal only to the “party faithful,” a much narrower band of voters than in the general election.
“I don’t think it is terribly representative,” Simpson said of the primary-election voters.
With all the attention focused on Iowa and New Hampshire, party officials were asked to weigh in on whether Missouri might shift its primary to an earlier date.
It’s not something that Republican Party leaders have discussed, said Paul Sloca, GOP spokesman. He said Missouri will always get the attention of presidential candidates because of its record of picking winners.
“Candidates — especially Republican candidates — realize how important the state is,” he said. “Missouri’s demographics make it a microcosm of the nation, and candidates recognize that and try to tap into it.”
Sloca said he thinks the Feb. 5 vote will be a “mega-primary with a lot of excitement, and if anything, Missouri will be a highlight of that.”
Missouri’s Democratic organization also has never given any serious discussion to shifting its primary date, said Doug Brooks, a Joplin resident and a member of the Democratic National Committee.
Brooks said the Democratic Party already has its own rules about primaries. Moving up its primary could pit the state organization against the national one and raise questions about who is in charge of the party’s nomination procedure.
Such controversy already has boiled up in states that jumped ahead of Feb. 5 in defiance of party rules.
The Republican National Committee slashed half of the national convention delegates in each of five states — Florida, Michigan, Wyoming, South Carolina and New Hampshire — because they scheduled their primaries or caucuses earlier than allowed.
The Democratic National Committee stripped the states of Florida and Michigan of all their convention delegates for early primaries. Democratic Party rules prohibit states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina from holding nominating contests before Feb. 5.
“Someone is always trying to move ahead,” Brooks said.
Brooks acknowledged that Missouri would be of “medium to low-medium importance” to candidates when it comes to the primaries simply because it offers fewer convention delegates than some other states.
But he said Missouri would be of great importance to the nominees come general-election time because it could swing to one side or the other.
“Missouri is one of those states that can tip the balance in a presidential election,” Brooks said.
John Putnam, chairman of the Jasper County Republican Central Committee, said he thinks all the primaries are coming too early, and before voters have had a chance to study the candidates.
He said Missouri shifted from nominating caucuses to primary elections so more people could participate. But, he said those participating in the caucus system were better informed, and there is a danger that in a primary vote, the victory will go to the candidate who has the most money and can buy the most name recognition.
“The primary system tends to get a lot of people out, but they don’t know a lot about the candidates, and moving the date forward would give people even less time to find out about who is running and what they believe,” Putnam said. “I’d rather have a system where the most people who are the best informed are participating.”
Putnam, who has run local campaigns and the phone banks that go with them, said he questions whether people want to see the campaigns drawn out any longer.
“Do they want phone calls from March to November?” he said. “Because once the candidates are known, the campaign starts, regardless of the (party nominating) conventions.”
Simpson, the MSSU professor, said he thinks states will come to regret the rush for early primaries.
This year’s primary lineup means the party nominees will unofficially emerge in early February — leaving nine months for campaigning and media coverage.
Voters could grow weary of that kind of prolonged politicking, Simpson said.
“You just wear out,” he said.


Reminder
Today is the last day for registering to vote in the Missouri presidential primary.

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