Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Gangale
As a commission of the Democratic National Committee considers making changes to the 2008 presidential nomination calendar, the white homeland of New Hampshire argues for its continued privilege of holding the first presidential primary of the campaign season. It argues for holding the rest of the nation in political second-class status. It clings to this position on the basis of tradition in the face of a changing America, a more diverse America that legitimately calls for opening the political process to broader participation, broader both ethnically and geographically.
Two centuries ago, when southern statesmen wanted to defend the indefensible and mention the unmentionable, they referred to their states' enslavement of African Americans as their "peculiar institution;" peculiar in the sense that it was specific to the economic needs of the agrarian South and to the historical development of its culture. It was perfectly legitimate. After all, slavery had been practiced all over the world at one time or another.
However, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, moral norms were changing. The Enlightenment had brought forth the concept of human dignity, and the founders of the American republic, being children of that Enlightenment, had brought forth a government dedicated to human equality. In this changing world, any argument in favor of privilege based on history and ancestry was increasingly indefensible.
As New Hampshire's position becomes more difficult to defend, statements coming out of the Granite State harden. We hear impassioned appeals to its "traditional key role in picking Presidential nominees," and threats to move the state's presidential primary into December 2007 to stay ahead of other states moving their primaries into January 2008. How peculiar that would be! Moreover, former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Joseph Keefe has ominously declared that if the DNC commission authorizes other states to leap ahead of the New Hampshire primary, "We will resist that by whatever means necessary."
History records that John C. Calhoun defended South Carolina's peculiar institution with equal fervor, and that tragically, a few years later his state actually did resort to "whatever means necessary."
New Hampshire could spare the nation a looming political war by acknowledging the march of progress and by displaying a generosity of spirit. Its reign as the "first in the nation primary" has an honored place in American history, but it no longer serves a useful purpose. If New Hampshire is prudent, it will abdicate gracefully rather than resist insanely in the last bunker.
Contrast New Hampshire's insistence on perpetuating electoral apartheid with the new vision that California offers the nation. In January 2006, the California Democratic Party is set to endorse a comprehensive plan to reform the presidential nomination process, a plan that is fair to all states. Now known as the American Plan, it spreads the nomination calendar across ten intervals of time and randomly selects the order of the states, so that from one presidential election cycle to the next, any given state would have an opportunity to be earlier or later in the calendar.
Most striking, while New Hampshire insists on remaining first, California relinquishes any claim on ever being first. California realizes that it is too big, that it costs too much money to campaign there, and that the nation is best served by expanding on the concept of "retail politicking" in small, early states. This would allow underfunded grassroots campaigns to score early victories and build momentum going into later, bigger, and more expensive contests. All that California asks for itself is that it have a reasonable opportunity to go early enough in the process to have a meaningful voice in choosing the presidential nominee. California does insist, however, that the calendar be opened to allow small states other than New Hampshire to go first, states more representative of America's diversity.
It is in the nature of the continuing American revolution that legal and political precedents are only temporary guides for law and governance, serving to give some stability to our institutions until those precedents become outmoded as new societal norms evolve. Our duty, as the inheritors of the American revolution, is to perpetually strive for a more perfect union, to refine the definition of justice, and to expand the sphere of liberty. It is incumbent on every American generation to bestow on its posterity more than it received from its antecedents. This generation of New Hampshirites can best honor its tradition by passing on that tradition to the other small states.