1. Agree
2. Disagree
3. Sort of agree - small states should go first, but it doesn't always need to be New Hampshire and Iowa.
4. Disagree
5. Disagree

I don't think the process was really all that bad. Having meaningful contests very late into the season was a good thing, IMO, in terms of energizing voters and increasing registration.

I've not participated in caucuses, but there is a reasonable argument to be made that the time investment required to participate helps encourage a more well-informed and committed electorate, and it makes it easier for less well known candidates to make an initial case to a smaller audience, building momentum to mount a longer campaign in later states.

Likewise consolidating into a few big regional primaries will make the nomination contest more money dependent than it already is, a change for the worse IMO.

But it's good to think about possible changes and weaknesses in the absence of a particular race, without worrying how it might help candidate X or candidate Y. So I recommend the post. Thanks!

1. less
2. no
3. yes
4. maybe
5. no

i think the primaries should be back loaded. the first few states should be spread out. on the last day at least half the states should vote. states should bid for earlier positions.

The caucuses gave us Obama. Not much of a reason going forward to keep them, but they are now sentimental favorites for some of us.

1) I think we reduce their number, perhaps, but I don't have a problem with guaranteeing delegate status for the party's most significant elected officials.

2) I think we try to figure out a way to ensure that people unable to attend caucuses because they work, they're sick or disabled, don't have child care, have to be out of town, etc., have a way to cast votes in the caucus process. But don't ban them. For all their drawbacks, caucuses have the advantage of party-building and mobilizing activists.

3) Agreed. But in order to allow for retail politicking and to give underfunded candidates a chance, I say divide the states plus D.C. into groups of 10 by population size (obviously one group will have 11). Hold a lottery among the five groups to pick one state from each. Hold your first primary in the state chosen among the smallest 10. Then, a week or two later, hold it in the state among the next largest 10. And so forth.

4) Agreed, with the modification above. After you've held the five single-state primaries, hold four regional primaries consisting of the remaining 45 states + D.C. Hold a lottery to determine the order and have them be two or three weeks apart.

5) Absolutely not! Everyone should have the opportunity to vote.

But thanks for putting this out there and asking for our thought.

Where does everyone get this idea that how the IA state Dem party selects its delegates is up to them? I like my caucus, thank you very much.

Something needs to be done about the schedule though, I agree.

Eliminate the Super delegates.
Keep caucuses for states that want them.
Eliminate the Texas caucuses.
Rotate which small states go first.
Group the rest of the states together and hold 3 or 4 mini super Tuesdays.
Switch to a winner take all delegate system.

And by all means...shorten the primary process so that the nominee has something left in them for the general election.

1) Fewer. I like having elected officials being accountable and under pressure to take a stance and justify it.

2) Disagree. Nothing wrong with caucuses if that is what individual states want to do. It requires campaigns to think and act in a different way and deal with crucial decisions about scarce resources.

3) Somewhat agree. I like it as a tradition and I think IA and NH take their place in the spotlight seriously. I also thnk they can have disproportionate influence on the narrative. I would like to see the order of the contests rotate, but I also think we should be careful not to overreact because of the peculiarity of this particular election. MI and FL would've had huge impact if they'd stayed where they were on the calendar.

4) Unclear what this means.

If the proposal is "Have blocks of states and rotate through the calendar so that you get an Northeastern, Western, Midwestern, and Southern state voting. Rinse and Repeat," I find this interesting and would like to see the idea fleshed out in some greater detail. I like the idea of mixing it up and getting all parts of the country involved. If that isn't the idea, I don't know what you mean.

5) Wholeheartedly disagree. This will never happen. In many cases, the contests aren't just about the Presidentail election. There are often ballot initiatives and other races to contest. Besides, what ever happened to "Count Every Vote"? If Barack had won in New Hampshire, there would've probably been tons of states that wouldn't have had primaries at all. If Hillary had won Iowa and New Hampshire, there almost certainly wouldn't have been any contests after Super Tuesday. I don't see how this solves a problem, as I don't see how allowing every state to have a role in the nominating process is a problem.

Here's an item for thought: Why do territories that cannot vote in the general election have delegates? Why do we have areas in which the will of U.S. Citizens is limited to their party nominating contests?

Where does everyone get this idea that how the IA state Dem party selects its delegates is up to them? I like my caucus, thank you very much.

Something needs to be done about the schedule though, I agree.

1) Disagree. Possibly fewer and only elected officials.

2) Agree. Caucuses have to go. If the DNC can disallow the delegates from 2 states because of when they held their primaries, it can refuse to seat delegates chosen by caucuses. Caucuses are nothing but vote suppression.

3) Agree.

4) Agree depending on the setup.

5) Disagree.

I'd rather just have a national primary with proportional voting. Just let the people decide. Pick your top three candidates. A full vote goes to your first choice, a half vote goes to your second choice, and a third of a vote to your third choice.

2. Not posible. You cannot make states pay for a primary if the do not want to. It is also not desirable. Primaries favor establishment candidates. Cacuses favor insurgent candidates who can inspire frevor in dedicated followers. We need a mix of both to help select the best candidate.

1. Yes, Get rid of the Super Delegates! They're a throw back the the backroom deals of Old.

2. No, Keep the Caucuses. The caucuses emphasize not only a candidates name recognition, but a candidates ability to galvanize support from their base. A leader's ability to Motivate others to actually implement his Judgement maybe more important than a leaders ability to make correct Judgments. Bill Clinton said "It's better to be Strong and Wrong than to be Weak and right."

3. No, Keep IA and NH first. Then Rotate the other states on a year to year basis. BUT keep the REALLY large Delegate rich states until on or after Super Tuesday. (WHY?) This allows for a campaign insurgency so that an outsider with a great organizational skill actually can win it. The larger more populous states are very difficult for an Unknown to win. Having the larger contest first would result in nothing more than a television ad and Name Recognition contest. The "Earned Media" i.e. news stories resulting from wins or losses tend to help in the larger contest. Heck, No NH, Bill Clinton wouldn't have been called "The Comeback Kid!" A moniker that stuck and really launched his campaign. Ironically, he was labeled the Comback Kid even though he lost New Hampshire (to a remarkably smaller margin that had been polled).

4. No. It would definitely save money on air travel. But on the other hand candidates that have a "Home State Advantage" would be better served by clumping them together. If the "New England Region" Voted First Clinton would have all but sowed up the nomination with her being able to campaign out of New York and Feather out. If it were a "South East Region" Then there's a good shot we'd be talking about the nominee elect John Edwards as he would have swept the south early and made himself look like the Inevitable candidate. Make it such that the candidates have to transverse the United States for primaries in different areas on different days makes it such that it's closer to being a race on Neutral Ground. Of course if it's clumped into a region, the candidates would shift the message from "South Carolina's Own" to "South East's Regions Own"

5. Nope. Sometimes elections are more than elections for this year. It would be convienent to call them off after the delegates are all in but FUTURE contest would be weakened. Ronald Reagan might not have been a viable candidate for 1980 if not for his run in 1976 and and Mike Huckabee Definitely set himself up to be a great candidate for 2012 with his race this year. Also there have been races to send messages about certain constituencies. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition run and Ron Paul's traditional Republican ride.

I say that primary/caucus dates should be chosen one day after the last election. The states should be able to choose, but once they do, they should be committed to that.

If every state chooses January 1, so be it. My guess is that after this election cycle, the competition could be for who goes LAST!

The DNC tried to make rules and enforce them and look what happened! Let the states make their own rules and stick to them, and go from there.

It couldn't be worse than this year's fiasco, and it just might make the system work for the best.

1. Get rid of superdelegates

Maybe. I personally think it is useful to have superdelegates who are elected officials. Why? Because theyb will know the candidates personally because they work with them. It was QUITE TELLING to me that Hillary was trailing among the Senators who had endorsed anyone. She has been in the Senate twice as long as Obama, some people had known her since the early 90s, yet he had more support (and suport from more moderate Red State Dems) based on less than four years work? That, to me, is quite telling. I would not give party hacks a vote, though. Only current and past elected officials (i.e., those who left office in the past five years or so).

2. Get rid of caucuses

Disagree. Why? Because as someone posted abot in support of your notion, "The caucus is a great way to get people to organize and to build party." Enough said! Plus, with caucuses, candidates with little money but good organization can compete. What's wrong with that?

3. Get rid of the "tradition" of IA and NH coming first.

Disagree. What is wrong with tradition? Iowa proved that, with the right candidate and the right organization, anyone can win early. If a skinny Chicagoan with a Muslim name can do it, who can't?

4. Set up regions of states for holding Primaries in rotating orders.

Disagree. The US is too large and too diverse to have such large populations and regions inundated in such a short time. Super Tuesday was an unmitigated disaster, with neither candidate paying much attention to California at all, because they could not afford to timewise or moneywise.

5. Once someone has enough delegates to win - call off the rest contests

Maybe. It is a waste of jet fuel, gasoline, etc. to force people to campaign, force the states to set up polls, etc. On the other hand, how do you select and assign delegates. Won't that piss off the late states which REALLY will have no say ion the selection of candidates?

I think this discussion would be better deferred til after the election.

The Democratic nominee was elected on the basis of the current rules. The last thing we need is to feed any current passion that delegitimates it.

My candidate won.

disagree. first, though i don't live in new hampshire or iowa, i respect those state's commitment to civic engagement. for all the high mucky mucks and wannabe ptb's who rationalized the frontloading of this primary, not one of them ever challenged those other states to increase civic engagement. their interest was only in trying to manipulate the process.

you don't advance participation, or even get issues out there by deriding those who actually take the process seriously. what that says is they don't respect citizen involvement, or interest, rather they view voters as something to exploit.

my state's democratic party, and democratic governor frontloaded in violation of the rules. it was apparent to many of us across the state that they were attempting to hijack the state's votes for clinton. for all their bs about "putting the state's issues forward" not once in the entire year did they attempt to increase civic engagement. in fact they did all they could to suppress it. their actions lead to many democrats feeling that their vote wouldn't count, because they couldn't vote for the candidate of their choosing, obama, edwards, etc..

so lay off nh and iowa, if you truly want to improve the process, learn one important fact, the problems we have with voting aren't because the good people of nh and iowa take the primaries seriously, it's the fact that others don't.

demand each state increase civic engagement, make it compulsory. the candidates will show up and participate in town hall meetings, etc.. so will the press.

i don't happen to care for caucusing, and