Primary defence
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Primary defence
Browsing through the Christmas edition of the Economist the first time I somehow managed to miss this excellent leader article on the presidential primaries. It is an excellent supplement to revision on this always popular exam topic, but could also be used as an introductory piece.
IT IS easy to make fun of Iowa and New Hampshire. These two states, with a combined population of 4.3m mostly white people, will soon kick off the 2008 primary season and also influence the presidential race out of any possible proportion to their size. Ethanol subsidies for greedy farmers, bleak midwinter meetings in rural diners, humourless men in lumberjack shirts: all come in for their share of ribbing. What an absurd way to choose a president, sneer many non-Americans.
In fact, the primaries system, once again, is working pretty well. There is a basic reason why Americans don’t seem seriously interested in challenging the position of the kick-off states: in the end, it doesn’t really matter which states start the ball rolling, so long as they are small. For the past four months or so, and now at a hysterical pitch, America’s presidential candidates have been forced to campaign for their lives in these unlikely arenas. Slick TV ads alone will not cut it, as they must in bigger states where meeting more than a fraction of a percent of the electorate is an impossibility. Iowa and New Hampshire want their candidates up close and personal.
This imposes immense, and immensely testing, challenges. Money and organisation matter far less than stamina, agility and that most unfakeable of all political attributes, charisma. Anyone deficient will be found out: anyone with the right stuff has a chance to shine.
Read the rest of the article to find the all important examples to back up the points made in this last paragraph, as well as further arguments for and against the primary system:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10328996
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