Washington File

You know the jokes.

Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille on the key pads.

There is a new one: only in America do they have primaries.

The punch line isn't as obvious but it's just as odd.

Elsewhere in the world there have only been two provinces in Italy, Apulia and Calabria, that tried the primary system; that was in 2005. Apparently the Italians didn't like the result and have little enthusiasm for doing it again.

Of course, there are several kinds of primaries, which are essentially elections to select who the candidates will be in an upcoming election and that only adds to the confusion of the process.

Raiding parties

One is called a closed primary. Voters get to vote in that only if they are registered members of the party that is holding it. Independents cannot vote.

Then there is the semi-closed primary. Registered voters get to vote in their respective party's primary. Democrats in the Democratic one, Republicans in the Republican one. But unaffiliated voters can register on the voting day and cast a ballot.

The most intriguing one is the open primary where anybody can vote. The problem here is what's called raiding.

Raiding takes place when voters of one party cross over and vote in the other party's primary, generally voting for a weak candidate in order to give their own party an advantage in the general election that is to follow.

Confused yet? There's more.

The semi-open primary is one in which any voter can participate, but that person must declare which party's primary he or she will vote in. They are then given a ballot for that party. The election official then registers the voter's choice and that information is passed to the parties.

So much for the secret ballot.

Finally, there is the runoff. A voter's ballot is not restricted and the top two candidates advance regardless of party affiliation.

Almost, kinda guaranteed

Generally speaking, the candidates who win a state primary are pretty much ensured they will be awarded their party's delegates at the nominating convention. That's not guaranteed but it is usually followed, at least for the first ballot.

In that respect, at least, presidential primaries are not unlike the delegate battles at the riding level during Canadian leadership conventions.

Because of these classifications, however, candidates often run their campaigns differently from one state to the next. Certain candidates zero in on states that strongly favour their party and ignore the others. On a day when several primaries are being held, trying to determine who is actually ahead gets very complicated.

At its simplest, the playing field for the voter is not level.

Complicating things even more, is the front-end loading that goes on at the beginning of very primary season.

Small states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and now Nevada — states with small, homogenous populations, few large cities and often single, dominant interests (like farm subsidies in the case of Iowa) — get to set the early pace in the presidential campaign.

An urban candidate concerned with big-city problems can get lost in the dust before he or she reaches their potential supporters.

Front-end creep

There is no better example of the front-end bias than the attention paid to ethanol. Whether or not the crop-based fuel is environmentally advantageous, ethanol has become an almost untouchable issue. Any politician even dreaming of national office, and that's all of them, votes yea on any ethanol bill that crosses their path.

This year a number of big-city states have had enough with what they see as special-interest primaries. So, Florida and Michigan, to mention two, jumped the gun.

Both advanced their primary dates by several months. That then set off a comic opera of other states doing the same.

As it stands now, Iowa and New Hampshire have moved their dates forward from previous years and New Hampshire is threatening to go earlier still, if it has to, to be ahead of Iowa and reclaim its crown as the first of the presidential primaries.

Iowa is now holding its caucuses on January 5. Both Iowa and N.H. officials say if there is any further forward movement on the part of other states they will move theirs into December.

There is no federal entity that controls the date-setting or ordering for primaries and caucuses. It's a state's right. But for some unfathomable reason, the Democratic party says the actions of Florida and Michigan are contrary to party dictates.

If they go forward as currently planned, then the delegates from those states will not be allowed to cast their votes for the party's nominee at the Democratic nomination convention next summer. This would be despite the fact that each of Florida and Michigan has more delegates than the three front-loading states put together.

It gets funnier

Not wanting to annoy their parties' voters in New Hampshire, Iowa and Nevada, the Democratic hopefuls have all indicated they will not campaign in Florida and Michigan. Though how long that will last, we will have to see.

Democratic Senator Joe Biden told an Iowa crowd, "I contacted the state of Michigan to take my name off the ballot because the big states are trying to crowd you guys out."

Then he drew thunderous applause with, "the only thing standing between access to the presidency based on ideas and access to the presidency based on money is Iowa and New Hampshire, where else could I do this?"

I can't predict who will win the presidency, but it's a certain bet that if Biden is still in the running when Florida and Michigan come up on the board, he'll be there with money and promises, and you probably won't hear the word ethanol escape his lips.

Republican hopefuls have not been troubled by this system. In fact, as this is being written, the party's hopefuls are lining up in Dearborn, Mich., for another of their debates, where they will talk about manufacturing, jobs and the U.S. economy.

To sum up: the American primary system is seldom imitated, seldom admired outside the country and a source of much argument, confusion and unfairness inside its borders.

But there is hope.

Kansas has said, "the hell with it" and has cancelled its 2008 primary altogether.

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