Great link.

So, 135,000 plus 500,000 people have “voted” so far…Biden, Dodd, Richardson, Tancredo, are out…maybe I’m missing some…Hunter?…

Anyway, that leaves 240,000,000 of us who have not had a chance to choose.

I believe in the right to CHOOSE. I believe in my right to a fair VOTE. But, I need to have a chance to vote for a candidate I like…if they are gone before I have my turn…well what is the point…not having it handed it to me. I am so pissed off….How can we change this????? We live in a fake Banana Republic for sure. This is nothing but a joke. It is a fix

.

Yeah L.S. I think it’s a huge point that has gotten little real attention from the press. They mention it on the surface. A lot of people are simply pre-empted aka screwed out of their vote.

I’m surprised one of the front pagers hasn’t made a big point of this via a blog although I could have missed it.

When I decided to run for Senate, I did so because I deeply believed that the citizens of Connecticut were yearning to see fundamental changes in our politics – changes that would make government work for them again.

Today, with our Presidential primary in Connecticut less than a month away, I am announcing my support of Barack Obama for President because I am convinced that his forward-looking, progressive vision provides the best chance to enact meaningful reforms in the way Washington works.

* “change that will make government work for them again”
* “forward-looking, progressive vision”
* “best chance to enact meaningful reform”
* “motherhood”
* “apple pie”

Barf!!!

You think the primary process should be longer? This whole process is way too long as it is.

No Fern. That’s not what I said or the NYT links said. My point is that all the states bunch together because there is so much pushing to be first like 3 year olds lining up for candy. Take a look at what a clusterfuck Michigan has become (Marcy’s word and it’s appropriate).

And it’s not longer for some of the candidates. All but 3 of the Dems are out now; and we’ve only had one caucus and one primary who were 5 days apart. It wasn’t very long for them or for people in the other 48 states who wanted to vote for them or have some say in the vote.

Let It Start Now: Change the Crappy Voting System

Keeping this race alive so significant numbers of Americans in more populated states can participate would begin to make up for the ludicrous spectacle of the past year, which enriched the television networks and the political consultants (some $300 million already spent) far more than it enriched the political dialogue.

Iowa is 92% white where a huge turnout amounts to less than 10 percent of the population,; New Hampshire is 95% white. Why should they have such a huge say as tiny states in picking our candidates?

Instead, the country should adopt a more sensible and more representative system of regional primaries, in which states are divided into regional groups that vote on a designated day. The honor of going first would rotate year to year among the regions. That would give a far broader range of American voters a say in this vitally important choice

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This doesn’t entail that it has to be any longer.

The vast majority of Americans don’t get a choice in who runs in the general. That should bother the hell out of everyone.

pups – thanks for making a nice end to the first night of the first day of the rest of my life after community mental health clinic….

(like leaving on a vast, slowly foundering vessel – under irregular strafing by the admin air force

below, patients and clinicians frantically pump out water…..

and the admin air force line up for another run…)