By now, it’s commonplace to wail and gnash teeth over the madness that the presidential primary season has become. And there’s been no shortage of proposals to fix a process that has become both interminable and likely to create a pair of nominees nearly a full year before the November election.

Would-be reformers have come up with a slew of ideas, gaining the most traction for one that would set four rotating regional primaries that would be held once a month (which has earned the blessing of the ultimate good-government organization, the National Association of Secretaries of States).

But beyond some desultory congressional hearings, not much has happened. And the resistance to change is compounded by the fact that the parties themselves retain much of the power to set the primary calender and have so many competing interests that the odds are stacked against any wholesale, meaningful change.

That said, an intriguing proposal has surfaced on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, (registration required) one that envisions a kind of rolling, cumulative national primary that could engage far more voters even while retaining the charms of retail politics.

 Key concept: “Set a national primary date of June 30 and create a window for early voting that opens on Jan. 1. The early votes would be counted and reported at the end of each month from January through May.

“More than 30 states already allow early voting, and every state allows absentee voting. But under the current system, those votes sit around until Election Day and often don’t get counted at all if the race isn’t close.

“If we began counting and reporting the interim results in advance of a national primary, the voters who cast early ballots would play the same role as voters in Iowa and New Hampshire do now: they could signal viability or create momentum for their favored candidates. These early voters would be self-selecting, trading the opportunity to watch the campaign unfold for the ability to demonstrate early conviction.

“Most important, every voter, no matter where he or she lived, would have the freedom to make this choice. Right now, when one votes is determined by where one lives.”

(Note to members of the VRWC who gag at the merest mention of the GLWC and its minions: Yes, it was penned by the son of your bete noir, George Soros, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.)

Thoughts?

 

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Another week, another Democratic presidential debate (this one out of Philadelphia tonight, 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on MSNBC and streaming live on msnbc.com), but this one carries with it expectations that it could be a steel-cage match between frontrunner Hillary Clinton and newly-agressive, second-place Barack Obama.

The stage will be as crowded as it has been for all of the earlier debates, but it’s almost certain that nearly all of the attention will be focused on the candidate who would become the first female president (with her towering — and growing – lead in the polls) and the candidate who would become the first black president (who signalled over the weekend that his gloves would come off; asked if Clinton had been truthful in what she’d been telling voters, he replied, simply, “no.”)

Adding to the intrigue are new poll numbers out of Iowa, the only place where Clinton doesn’t appear to have built a towering lead. A new Hawkeye Poll conducted by the University of Iowa shows a dead heat between Clinton and Obama, with John Edwards tailing off in the state that has become his make-or-break stand. Here are the details about the poll.

Here’s a taste of how the Obama and Clinton camps have been sniping at each other. Obama went first over the weekend, with a new ad about Social Security that (again, implicitly) slams Clinton, saying “I don’t want to just put my finger out to the wind and see what the polls say.”

For its part, the Clinton campaign lobbed a news release over the transom this morning that picks apart Obama’s “politics of hope” riff. Accusing both Obama and Edwards for sullying the concept, it asks, rhetorically, “Does the “politics of hope” mean launching attacks on one candidate? Or does it mean laying out a vision for the American people? Does it mean questioning a rival’s integrity? Or does it mean talking about the change we need?”

Again, the fun starts at 8 p.m.

Although almost no one is predicting that Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, will be the next president of the United States, he has been generating headlines, campaign contributions and chatter among mainstream pundits and bloggers alike.

For the candidate’s own version of his platform and priorities, here’s Paul’s official campaign site.  And here’s his first TV ad, which went up this week in New Hampshire, the state where he’s currently polling most robustly.

Despite his relativeley anemic poll numbers overall, his surprising fundraising success and his attention-grabbing performances during Republican debates have contributed to the increasing attention paid to Paul. The $8.2 million he raised in the first nine months of the year raised more than a few eyebrows, while the debates have contributed to audible word-of-mouth about him among independents, disaffected Republicans and libertarians. Here’s a debate from September, while here’s one held this month in Florida. (Dozens more are just a click away on YouTube.)

So, maybe he won’t be the next president, but Paul seems poised to shake up the Republican race at least a bit.

 

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By and large, Minnesotans miss much of the television advertising from presidential campaigns that blanket the battleground states every four years (possibly a blessing in disguise that may be eroding now that the state has become increasingly purple.

Now, however, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City, more than a half-century’s worth of those TV ads is at any political junkie’s fingertips. The museum has archived hundreds of them on its web site, all the way back to the first ads broadcast in 1952. It includes everything from Willie Horton in 1988 to John Kerry’s windsurfing in 2004. If you’re politically inclined, it’s irresistable.

(Hat tip: New York Times)

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From Washington, correspondent Nina Petersen Perlman has this update on the nudge-nudge, wink-wink candidacy of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert:

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The whippersnappers of the world have spoken: comedian Stephen Colbert is their chosen one for leader of the free world.A student from Loveless Academic Magnet Program High School in Montgomery, Ala. began recruiting his friends to join the Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert,” when the Comedy Central host of “The Colbert Report” announced his intentions to run for president.

By way of comparison, it took just nine days to surpass that goal. “It’s taken Obama’s 1,000,000 Strong Group more than 9 months to get 381,000 members, We beat it in less than 5 days! We overtook them within 5 days!” the group brags.

The group “Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary),” which started in February, has just barely cracked half a million.

Colbert is trying to have it both ways by treating the whole thing as a multi-dimensional joke (promoting his new book, elevating the profile of his conservative gasbag persona, satirizing the sheer ridiculousness the presidential campaign), even as he goes through the real-world motions of mounting a candidacy in his native South Carolina.

It turns out he’s made some real inroads into that real world. The Rasmussen polling organization recently matched him up as an independent candidate running against Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani — and he got 13 percent of the vote. With Fred Thompson in the matchup, he got 12 percent. And, Rasmussen noted, “In both match-ups, Colbert has more support with young voters than the GOP candidate.”

And playing into Colbert’s conceit as South Carolina’s favorite son, on Saturday, the mayor of his hometown of Charleston plans to give him the key to the city — and, yes, declare him the state’s favorite son.