The Time Zone Model
The Time Zone Model |
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Professor Mark Siegel of The George Washington University (and former DNC executive director) has proposed a system in which states would be grouped roughly along time zone lines into three blocs--Eastern, Central, and Mountain/Pacific. Each zone would hold its primaries and caucuses on the first Tuesday of April, May, or June. The voting order of the zones would rotate from one cycle to the next. (Brock 2000, 34) Presumably, Alaska and Hawaii would vote with the Pacific and Mountain time zones. Table 18 and Figure 37 show a possible schedule for 2004. Figure 38 and Figure 39 are corresponding political and geographic maps.
This system improves on regional primary concepts in that there would be no Northeastern, Southern or Midwestern regional winner. For example, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Florida would all vote the same day; on another day, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas would all vote. As with any regional primary scheme, all other things being equal, campaign costs would be reduced, although to a lesser extent in this system, since the country would be divided into three, very large regions. (Schram 2000)
A rotating regional primary system divided into only three segments would blow out candidates with small campaign chests in the first round, because such candidates could not possibly compete in so many states simultaneously. Also, the time zones vary greatly in population, and in the case where the Eastern time zone voted first, candidates would begin the season by facing nearly half the voters in the entire country. The Eastern time zone contains more than twice the population of Alaska, Hawaii, and the Pacific and Mountain time zones combined. Fundamentally, the Time Zone Model is a misapplication of geography with the thinnest of political rationale. No matter which time zone voted first, only the most well-funded candidates would be able to compete with reasonable success in the first regional primary, thus the field would be very quickly narrowed to two or possibly three candidates in each party. One can predict that such a system would result in fewer candidates even daring to throw their hats into the ring, thereby giving the people fewer choices. Another criticism of rotating regional plans in general is that they do not address the practice of homesteading.
Compared to the Time Zone Model, the Graduated Random System allows a much more gradual ramp-up in the extent and expense of campaigning. Grass roots campaigns with shoestring budgets would be competitive through several election intervals, giving them time to gather momentum. This opens the process to the widest field of candidates, giving the American voter more choices and a longer time to deliberate.
The Time Zone Model gives an overwhelming advantage to one particular region in a given presidential year. On the other hand, the Graduated Random System picks individual states at random rather than whole regions, bringing more regional balance to the system.