Some discussion this week by James and Steven about primary elections, and the broken process currently employed in the USA for selecting the major parties’ presidential candidates. The discussion is prompted, in part, by the recent news that Ca...

I was going to respond to "just me" but I couldn't really say much more than "Triumph" already said.

LJD: "Gore lost." Yes, in the only vote count that mattered that year: The one on the Supreme Court (which the Framers--for all their other bad compromises on the national executive in order to appease small states that would have bolted the union rather than agree to democratic elections--smartly never gave any role in presidential selection).

Outside the Beltway advocates a national primary......

My issue with a national primary is candidates could focus on the big states and not worry too much about the small states, and just rely on name recognition and ads. Sort of the same reason I am not all the keen on ditching the electoral college for a national majority gets the win election.

Why is this a big deal? The small states are basically freeloaders who are getting a "democracy subsidy" anyway because of the lunacy of the electoral college.

The EC was a product of the same racist impulse that birthed the Three-Fifths compromise. It is shameful that it hasn't been amended out of existence.

Also, once problem with a national primary-at least for NH is that NH law states they will hold the first primary.

Although the idea of having several dates, and randomly choosing which states hold primary or caucus for each date may solve more first concern, because candidates couldn't cherry pick easily which states they wanted to concentrate on.

One thing I would like to see is the primary season made shorter-going from Jan to June is too long. March to June would be more suitable, although I am not sure the states with Jan or Feb dates would give them up.

Indeed, I would argue that “only the richest candidates had a shot at winning the nomination and that no issues would be discussed in any depth whatsoever” perfectly describes the status quo, not some post-apocalyptic future.

This is right on. Remember back to the 2000 Republican primary, some of the most experienced candidates dropped out BEFORE there was even an election anywhere explicitly because they couldn't raise the cash. All of the party's money went behind Bush. McCain was only able to make a run for it because of the power of a then-nascent internet.