EDITORIAL
TOWARDS NOVEMBER'S ELECTION If there is any small blessing to be grateful for this far into the quadrennial presidential primary process, it is that the Democratic nominee has not already been...
...As things are this year, Democrats must hope that a couple of shrewd campaigners will not have the nomination predetermined before voters have time to give serious consideration to people like Morris Udall, Frank Church and-hold your breath-Hubert Humphrey...
...that the devisers of the primary system wanted it so to evolve that a handful of states would have inordinate influence over the options open by the time the national conventions rolled around...
...A cold-war warrior like Henry Jackson-who, it develops, would use food as a weapon in a hungry world to strengthen American power-is not our idea of a President of the United States...
...As things are this year, Democrats must hope that a couple of shrewd campaigners will not have the nomination predetermined before voters have time to give serious consideration to people like Morris Udall, Frank Church and-hold your breath-Hubert Humphrey.umphrey...
...Nor is a Southern ex-governor without ideology, whose main claim to recognition is that he can defeat George Wallace in "home" territory, and whose principal talent seems to rest in keeping programs and positions sufficiently obscure so as to be read in different ways...
...Such a ticket would, as they say, serve them both right, but not the country as a whole...
...Despite the puzzling bid of California's Jerry Brown, one can only lament the radical narrowing of possibilities this early in the process, and wonder whether it is not time to reconsider the idea of a one-day national primary, or, better yet, an idea like Senator Mondale's for six regional primary dates, rotated in order every four years so that no one region would have the advantage of regularly setting the electoral mood for the rest of the country...
...Sargent Shriver and Fred Harris may be gone by the time this editorial is in print...
...TOWARDS NOVEMBER'S ELECTION If there is any small blessing to be grateful for this far into the quadrennial presidential primary process, it is that the Democratic nominee has not already been determined...
...Milton Shapp has withdrawn...
...In a word, we will have to know much more about Jimmy Carter than we do now in order to work up any enthusiasm for his candidacy...
...Senator Birch Bayh was forced from active competition for the Democratic nomination two states into the preferential primary process...
...Despite the puzzling bid of California's Jerry Brown, one can only lament the radical narrowing of possibilities this early in the process, and wonder whether it is not time to reconsider the idea of a one-day national primary, or, better yet, an idea like Senator Mondale's for six regional primary dates, rotated in order every four years so that no one region would have the advantage of regularly setting the electoral mood for the rest of the country...
...Which leads anew to some old reservations about the presidential preference system...
...Sargent Shriver and Fred Harris may be gone by the time this editorial is in print...
...Four states-New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Florida-appear to have decided the Republican nominee as Gerald Ford, and may even have washed up Ronald Reagan as the vice-presidential candidate...
...However, so much significance has been attached by the media, and by financial backers of candidates, to returns from early-primary states with small or special-group populations that the validity of the process comes into question...
...Milton Shapp has withdrawn...
...Yet it could happen this way...
...The primary process is a useful and important tradition...
...Yet it could happen this way...
...It is doubtful that the devisers of the primary system wanted it so to evolve that a handful of states would have inordinate influence over the options open by the time the national conventions rolled around...
...Senator Birch Bayh was forced from active competition for the Democratic nomination two states into the preferential primary process...
...The political welfare of the nation rests once again with the Democratic party, though hardly, it would seem, with those who, through the Florida vote, have emerged as the party's front-runners...
...Precisely because Senator Jackson is who he is, and because Carter is thus far an obfuscator, we are thankful that the Democratic competition has not been prematurely closed-as it might have been with Florida, had Jackson run first instead of third in that state...
Vol. 103 • March 1976 • No. 7
