Democratic Primary Changes Good News for America

The thought of seeing the Democratic presidential candidates, minus Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., standing before a crowd in Nevada must have been a welcome sight to the party activists who have fought to break the stranglehold on the primary system by Iowa and New Hampshire.

I've never been a fan of having the candidates pour a ton of money into the two states, and if they don't do well there, their campaigns are kaput. That meant a candidate from California or any other Western state, and even some in the South, had to pray they stayed in the game until the campaign found its way to their territory.

By diversity, I'm not just meaning ethnicity. Even the casual observer could recognize that with both states being overwhelmingly white — Iowa is nearly 88 percent and New Hampshire is 96 percent — the issues sensitive to blacks, Hispanics and Asians would be virtually ignored.

Yes, education, economic development and the war in Iraq are all issues that affect us across the board. But even greater issues are those of state and regional concerns. While Iowa may care about ethanol and farm subsidies, those in the Western states will toss out mining rights and land development as primary issues.

This is the way we should look at our presidential candidates.

Instead of having them tailor a message to a few people, we should get a better representation of who should be president based on the interests of multiple states.

It is a much more effective way for voters to discern who will represent America.

In fact, Democrats should be looking to expand the number of states that hold early primaries in 2012. What is the harm in having as many as six to 10 states hold their primaries in the first month or two? Yes, it will be more costly because candidates will have to spread their resources over multiple locations, but it will lend more credibility to having a candidate representative of the American people. We all know that money is already a major focus of the candidates this early, but it all serves us well.

This will no doubt hurt the feelings of residents in Iowa and New Hampshire. They take tremendous pride in their first-in-the-nation status, but they also can't deny that a ton of money drives the local economy. Radio and TV stations, as well as newspapers in both states, generate a significant amount of revenue and the hotels and coffee shops clean up because of the massive ground troops hired.

But the ego of residents in both states is immaterial. What we need to focus on is fairness and equality.

Democrats who want to stay wedded to tradition need to step back and determine what is best for America. The party will no doubt establish much better candidates for the general election, and by being inclusive, those candidates could very well drive more Americans to get interested in the process, rather than the process becoming an afterthought.

Roland S. Martin is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives On Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.rolandsmartin.com. To find out more about Roland Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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