Is the Presidential Primary System Fair?

We just finished the midterm elections and already we're hearing about the 2008 races for the presidential nomination. I wonder why I should even bother to follow them at all? I have never been able to vote in a presidential primary where the outcome of the eventual nominee was in doubt. It was already decided by the time they got to my state.

I was very eager for Phil Gramm, then a senator from Texas, to be the Republican nominee in 1996. But I never got to vote for him, because he dropped out of the race before my state held its primary. If a candidate does not do well in Iowa and New Hampshire, their chances of securing the nomination are slim.

Why do we allow the people of those two states to decide who our nominees will be? Let's change it to a single, nationwide primary. Or perhaps do it a few states at a time, but rotate the order that they vote every four years, so that the people in every state get a chance to decide.

This is an issue that voters in both parties might agree on. This bizarre system where the voters of two small states get to pick the nominees often results in nominees for whom very few voters are enthusiastic. Bob Dole was given the Republican nomination back in 1996 because it was "his turn", if that makes any sense. Never mind whether or not he would campaign effectively for the presidency. Never mind whether or not he would make an effective president.

The worst product of the current primary system came when the nation elected Jimmy Carter president in 1976. Carter had very little experience (only one term as governor of Georgia) but came from out of nowhere to win the Democrat nomination by focussing his efforts on Iowa and New Hampshire. Most people in the USA had never heard of him before 1976. He beat Gerald Ford in the general election because the Republicans were still reeling from the Watergate scandal. And the result was Carter was probably the worst president in the history of the country. Even though the Democrats had huge majorities in both houses of congress, he was unable to get almost any legislation of any significance passed, good or bad. And his record on foreign policy was sheer disaster. We are still dealing with the repercussions of his foolish decision to appease islamic terrorists and negotiate with the Khomeini regime in Iran, after they seized our embassy and kidnapped 52 American diplomats for 444 days. Henry Jackson, who was defeated by Carter for the Democrat nomination in 1976, would have made a much more effective president.