Who Cares About New Hampshire?

In an editorial this morning David Leonhardt, a columnist for the New York Times, makes a complaint about the nation's primary system that has frequently been made before, and will frequently be made again. Leonhardt criticizes a primary system that begins in two of the least populated and representative states in the U.S., New Hampshire and Iowa. Leonhardt, and many others, argue that New Hampshire's and Iowa's place at the front of the line distorts presidential elections by compelling candidates to appeal to an almost exclusively middle class and rural population, i.e. an electorate unrepresentative of the U.S. at large. They are on the average older, more likely to have health insurance, slower to reproduce, and perhaps worst of all, whiter than the nation at large.

What is important to voters in New Hampshire and Iowa is understood by Leonhardt and others to be peculiar to the narrow demographics that make up those two states. When presidential aspirants appeal to the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire they stake out positions and policies calculated to gain the support of voters in those two states. Given the deep aversion to "flip flopping" on the part of candidates, positions adopted at the start of the campaign will be carried through to the general election. It would not do to say one thing to voters in New Hampshire and another thing to voters in California. To deal with this, the increasingly sophisticated art of obfuscation is required: another malady of modern politics.

This lament is borne of a very low estimation of the American public. It presumes that the vast majority of voters in the U.S. are either uninformed, lazy, or slow witted. Candidates, and as importantly their financial backers, seem to assume that voters in the rest of the United States reserve their opinions until the victories and electoral votes start piling up. It is a discredit to the U.S. electorate that this assumption has merit. To sacrifice or abandon one's political beliefs in order be on the side of a winner is lazy and opportunistic.

There is nothing necessarily undemocratic or unfair about the way the presidential primary system is set up. The political sensibilities of voters in New Hampshire should not in any way influence voters in Nebraska. Once the vagaries and generalities about "putting people to work" and "getting the nation moving" are gotten past the real issues emerge and those issues are not general or vague. Just as farm policy has little import to voters in Michigan, manufacturing and industrial policy have little import to voters in New Hampshire and Iowa. However voters in New Hampshire feel about free trade, voters in Michigan are likely to feel different. If voters in Michigan want to abandon their opinions in order to climb on a bandwagon launched in New Hampshire that is their prerogative, but they should not blame New Hampshire or the "system" for it. They are in no way obliged.

To those around the nation who feel they are being cheated or short changed by the early primaries in New Hampshire and Vermont I ask who cares what voters in Vermont and New Hampshire think? Why should voters in Alabama care one whit who voters in New Hampshire think is the best candidate? If voters around the nation are firm in their political positions and at all informed they will not, or at least should not, be swayed by what voters in New Hampshire think. A vote in New Hampshire does not count any more than a vote in Texas.

If the assumption that voters in New Hampshire and Vermont set the table for the rest of the nation is valid, do not blame the system. The system does not vote. Blame the voter. If voters in Ohio are inclined to base their votes on what voters in New Hampshire think they are only short changing themselves. Very few, however, are willing to blame voters for anything, certainly not in public. That is why every unexpected result and every brow raising victory is greeted with arguments that the system is askew and should be reformed. The system is not to blame. If anything is to blame it is the voter. But let's keep tinkering with the primary system. If we can somehow get it just right there should be fewer surprises. The most electable candidate will win every time, and who doesn't want the most electable candidate to win?

At this point in the campaign it is not really about voters at all. It is about money and backing. Presidential hopefuls are looking for momentum and all that it brings with it. They want to demonstrate "electability" and the first step takes place in New Hampshire. The answer to the question of who cares about New Hampshire is presidential hopefuls do. The answer to the question of why anyone else should care about New Hampshire is because presidential hopefuls do.