WISHING FOR AN OPEN CONVENTION.

WISHING FOR AN OPEN CONVENTION. With the campaign for 2008 being launched in earnest, the problems with the nomination process are being pointed out again. Two prominent political technicians review them (links via Realclearpolitics). Michael Barone says: “It starts too early, takes too long and ends too abruptly….It excludes many serious candidates….The process gives too much power to Iowa and New Hampshire.” Peter Brown points out that some of the bigger states are talking about moving up their primaries to a hypothetical February 5, 2008 primary. “But there are almost a dozen other potential candidates in the two parties — senators, congressmen and governors well known in their home states, but strangers to the national electorate — who would be severely handicapped by a massive Feb. 5 primary.” A contested (open) convention would solve these problems, but as Barone says, it’s not going to happen in 2008.