What will Michael Steele do with the presidential primary calendar?

 The most important thing we need to do is to make it mathematically impossible for anyone to capture the nomination until three months after Iowa.  The problem last time is that it was impossible for Conservatives to rally around Mitt Romney after McCain jumped out to his early lead.

Except for Texas, Democrats won every single state in which there was a primary after Super Tuesday.

I'll be the first to admit that I have next to no understanding of the machinations behind the primaries and whatnot - but having said that - why the hell does the GOP allow Iowa to basically decide what candidate gets a decided advantage in the primary?  Why not a state that consistently votes overwhelmingly Republican? 

Or just work out a rotating system or something - or better yet, just have every single state hold their primary on the same day.  Save a ton of money in campaigning, make each voter make their choice based upon the candidates' actual qualifications rather than who's popular, and cut the media out of it. 

As it is, we allow the media to latch on to their candidate of choice, inevitably the least conservative of the bunch, and build them up or tear down the true conservatives, and by the time the vast majority of Americans actually get to choose the choice has already been made.  This system is ridiculously un-American and has outlived its usefulness.

The biggest change that can (and should) be made to the Republican primaries is to close them.  It was Democrats and Independents who crossed over in New Hampshire and South Carolina that gave McCain early, key victories.  I want only Republicans deciding who the Republican nominee should be. 

My conservative friends here frequently take me to task for not recognizing the "unintended consequences."

Well, even I can see that the primary process has more than we could list, and is badly in need of reform. First thing I would recommend is that the GOP drop winner-takes-all and go to proportionality. It could be argued that one factor alone won the election for Obama.

McCain locked it up early and stupidly went into cruise control waiting for the Dems to select a nominee. Meanwhile, Obama (and Hillary) were building up local resources to fight in every state. Resources they would reactivate later during the general with just a phone call.

Cahnman's point that Obama won every state that primaried after Super Tuesday, except Texas, is I think related to my point. McCain had no resources in any of those states because he didn't think he needed them. By the time he figured out he was toast....well.... he was toast.

Incumbent presidents tend to draw weak opposition (McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis (semi-incum race), Clinton (loser if not for Perot), Dole, Kerry)*. The really strong candidates keep their powder dry to fight for the open seat 4 years later, rather than be labled a loser. The GOP could see Ron Paul and his fanatical army take the nomination by force in 2012, because no one else in the field has the money or manpower to challenge.

*I know Reagan is the exception. But how many times can you find a former movie star and former CA governor? Wait, that gives me another idea for you guys.......

I never thought I'd be writing, much less thinking such a thing, but at this point we could do a lot worse than Ron Paul at the top of our ticket in 2012.  If nothing else, he'd attract a ton of media attention, he's not afraid to speak his mind and call out corruption when he sees it, and he wouldn't pull his punches when dealing with the Messiah and his worshipers in the media.  He'd also pull a lot of younger voters from Obama.

I disagree with him on a number of things, but I disagreed with McCain on a lot more, and at least with Paul you know exactly where he stands.  Granted, this is barring a Palin/Jindal ticket in 2012.

Since I am a native of Iowa, I have a natural preference for keeping the Iowa caucuses as the first step in the selection process. There are, however, several other things that I consider more pertinent than any particular state being the starting point.  (1) The system needs to be set up so that the candidates are exposed and vetted in several early trial states; preferably a mixture of primary and caucus states. I think it would be a mistake to hold a bunch of primaries on the same day in major states early in the campaign season before Republican voters had a chance to study and observe the different candidates. (2) Make it more difficult for Democrats and to some extent Independents to vote in the Republican contest in some states where the process is now wide open. (3) I personally favor a bit more proportional dividing of the votes in states where the winner currently takes all even though by a very slim majority of votes. I can, however, understand some of the argument for the winner take all philosophy.