Our nomination system sucks

Why on earth do you think that if we had a national primary that smaller candidates would receive national attention? Every major news media outlet in the country spent a majority of their time covering the top three candidates in each party. To be on the ballot in each state costs a lump sum of money which is decided by each state. New Hampshire, the darling of political freedom, only charges a thousand dollars to be on the ballot. In South Carolina for example, the Republican ticket costs 30,000 and the democratic ticket costs 2,500. By saying that there is going to be a national primary, you are literally requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding to put the candidate on the ballot in all 50 states at once. You will immediately limit the ability for a candidate to run which is not independently wealthy, or incredibly well funded prior to even announcing. So, before the media would even take a candidate "seriously", they'd need hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding, which means you will never see a President with humble political beginnings, such as Carter, Clinton, or really anyone who lacks -national- name recognition. Which, believe it or not, is a majority of the congressional representatives. Your analysis of the issues which Iowans rely on is wrong. Period. You can say you're just employing a stereotype or a rule of thumb, but you're still wrong. If you look at Romney's three pillars speech which he gave all around Iowa, it talks about how the nation needs a strong military, a strong economy, and strong families. While the family might be a social issue, I'm pretty confident that security and economics made up a majority of that speech's content. He still received 25% of the county delegates. I gather that you dislike Huckabee, but only 34% of the Republican party supported him. So, you think Iowa is terrible because 66% percent of the party decided not to support him. Romney was ineffective at targeting McCain supporters, or Thompson supporters. Even good old Duncan Hunter, who spent very little time in Iowa received some support. Mike Huckabee is at about the same level of national support as Mitt Romney, so I don't fathom how you've come to the conclusion that Iowa was skewed when he won the state. You make the claim that caucuses are an indication of how much money you can spend to organize avid supporters, yet Mitt Romney outspent everyone in his party, and only received 25% of the vote. So, again your generalization or whatever you'd like to call it is also wrong. You allege that the candidates I mentioned had no effect on the race. I disagree, but I won't get into it. You claimed that Sam Brownback had no support, and dropped out before Iowa. Well, he did pull off 15% at the Ames Straw Poll, polling consistently higher in the state than McCain or Thompson. I don't personally know his reasons for dropping out, but he did have support in the State, and he went on to endorse McCain. Richardson was a weak candidate from the beginning, and had a terrible speaking style and a terrible stage presence which is why his numbers sharply dropped after the hype created by his great television commercials. He never did well in any of the Democratic debates, and the prize for finishing fourth was the New Hampshire debate, a prize which he did not capitalize on. If Guiliani had bothered spending any time in the state of Iowa, he might have gotten a 4th place finish, and he might have been at that New Hampshire debate. You can't win an election when you don't campaign. It was not an intelligent decision on the part of his campaign to ignore Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Nevada to hope and pray that after not campaigning against anyone that you'll be able to pull off a victory in Florida. If he had spent more time campaigning, the man would have been terribly embarrassed as his opponents pointed out his lack of knowledge, experience, and really anything to base a platform off of. Also, Joe Biden singlehandedly destroyed his candidacy by pointing out that every sentence out of Rudy's mouth contained a noun, a verb, and 9/11. His campaign was a failure because it didn't campaign. I wouldn't go about accepting his excuse "Oh, I knew I wouldn't do well in Iowa because I have three wives, my kids hate me, and 9/11." He was a hallow man with nothing to stand on, or stand behind, especially since the 9/11 commission report contains nothing but criticism for him. Not to mention the fire fighters that died because he failed to replace their faulty equipment after repeatedly being told about it. Your statements about grassroots movements are also fallacious. At the county convention, the party forms the county platform, and so forth at the district and state levels. A grassroots movement that can get a dozen people to a precinct can wind up getting a delegate to express their views at the county, to force their planks onto the platform. If the party establishment chooses those who decide the platform, obviously the grassroots movement won't get anywhere unless it first becomes mainstream which means it's not a grassroots movement. The caucus is conducted by precincts. A candidate can do very well in one county, and not in another. That's how grass roots can be effected. Where Obama failed is that in my precinct, he had 200 folks show up to caucus for him, but couldn't find eight of his supporters that wanted to go to the county convention. So, Obama might have won the caucuses but it will not be reflected on the platform as people who are actually willing to be involved, remain involved. I don't think that I have ever received a memo on what the spirit of the party is, however the party's business is the party's business. If people honestly don't care to participate, they really shouldn't have any influence. Very few individuals ever attend a central committee meeting, very few people ever help to plan an event, or even help out with volunteer time for anything. There's no reason nor obligation to extend participation to someone who wants to spend 99.9% of their year having nothing to do with politics, or their party. If you want to participate, you're more than welcome to. But there's no reason to slight people who actually work to advance the party, and get folks elected just so you can include people who don't care enough to lift a finger on any other day but election day. The reason why McCain is leading in the polls is not his popularity, he is leading in the polls because people that are members of the Republican party are supporting him. If anything, last nights score of primaries and handful of caucuses shows that there is no "vote for the winner trend", as all three of the remaining Republican candidates pick up whole states, and dozens of national delegates, and as both of the Democratic candidates have no edge over each other. To suggest that a "vote for the winner" mentality is projecting McCain into to the front line is another little analyzed view point that doesn't hold up to examination. If people are supporting McCain, they're supporting him based off of either issues, or confidence in him. He is a short, unattractive, old and broken man who has spent less than Romney, and goes against a good chunk of the Reagan coalition of conservatives' bloc. So, he is winning because Republicans are voting for him, and maybe, just maybe they're tired of the last seven years of repeated lies and failures on the part of their party's control of congress and the administration. A national primary wouldn't help with constituent groups, it would destroy them. It would destroy the grass roots, and it would destroy participation in our system by anyone who is not writing a check. It would make the voting bloc nothing more than a pawn of the rich. It would destroy Democracy. I would rather see a return to the electoral college.