It’s just not fair.
With the New Hampshire primary scheduled for Feb. 1, a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll asked a national sampling of adults and a random selection of New Hampshire voters the same question: “Overall, how much do you feel you know about the candidates running for president?”
In the survey, 64 percent answered “just some/hardly anything” as opposed to 35 percent commenting “a great deal/a good amount.”
New Hampshire respondents offered a decidedly different viewpoint. In the Granite State, more than two-thirds (68 percent) feel they know “a great deal/a good amount,” while 32 percent said “just some/hardly anything.”
The contrasting opinions in the two survey samples speak volumes about the convoluted system currently in place for nominating presidential candidates. It’s as though the campaign for the nation’s highest office takes place simultaneously on two distinct radio frequencies. What’s clear reception, with informative messages, for one New England state is largely crackling and meaningless static for the country as a whole.
New Hampshire and Iowa, where the presidential party caucuses take place Jan. 24, are beneficiaries of ardent attention from White House aspirants and their campaign organizations for a simple reason. They exert a stranglehold on the the nominating process stronger than any maneuver Jesse Ventura ever tried in his pro wrestling career. For New Hampshire and Iowa, being first in the nominating process means getting the chance to listen to and question the candidates directly as well as receive continuous exposure to the advertising and news coverage of their campaigns.
Is it any wonder that people in New Hampshire are confident in what they know about who’s running? If the same question were posed in Iowa, the results would no doubt be similar.
What’s titanically troubling, however, is that neither New Hampshire nor Iowa is typical of America. In demographic terms, according to the 2000 edition of “The Almanac of American Politics,” New Hampshire is 98 percent white. One percent of the people there are Hispanic, with African-Americans, Asian-Americans and American Indians collectively making up another 1 percent. In Iowa, whites make up 96.7 percent of the population, with African-Americans at 1.7 percent, Hispanics at 1.1 percent and other groups below a single percent.
Nationally, the following breakdown exists: 12.1 percent African-American, 9 percent Hispanic, 2.9 percent Asian-American and 0.8 percent American Indian, with the remainder (about 75 percent) classified as white.
The skewing of minority representation is just one dimension of the unrepresentative nature of New Hampshire and Iowa in playing such influential roles in the presidential selection process. According to the Census Bureau’s new “Statistical Abstract of the United States,” 75.2 percent of Americans now are considered urban residents, with 24.8 percent rural. In New Hampshire, 49 percent fall into the rural category (double the national count), while in Iowa the rural number stands at 39.4 percent.
The oft-quoted maxim that “all politics is local” takes on new meaning when you think of candidates for national office debating agriculture subsidies and the virtues of ethanol at the expense of concerns with more urban resonance and consequence.
It’s all well and good for Bill Bradley and John McCain to pledge to reform the hopelessly flawed campaign-financing system, as they did with such fanfare in a recent joint appearance in New Hampshire. But just as important, there needs to be a concerted effort to reform the presidential nominating system itself, making it more representative and democratic for the nation in its diverse totality. A methodical, regional arrangement of several states voting over three or four months in a coherent process would be a welcome start in improving the current, every-state-for-itself chaos.
Commentators keep chattering that candidates in the 2000 race are being judged on leadership abilities, especially their character and courage. It would take political bravery of uncommon, character-built spine to pronounce in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere what really needs to be said: “If elected, one of my first acts as president will be to propose an entirely new nominating system that plays no favorites and fairly reflects the wishes of all Americans.”
