I know this is an elections blog, and that I should, in theory, be excited by the prospect of a longer campaign season. But the news that South Carolina will move its Republican primary up to January 19 so as to become the state "first in the South" to start the voting ball rolling is unwelcome, to say the least. But I don't solely blame South Carolinians. After all, they're just following the lead of states like Florida and California, who are attempting to wield greater influence in the electoral process. The problem is that such repositioning causes a domino effect:

Under some scenarios, the decision could lead Iowa to hold its caucuses in mid-December, creating an unprecedented situation in which convention delegates are selected in the calendar year before a presidential election.

Where will this madness end? Ohio in October? South Carolina in September? Alabama in August? Hell, why not have the presidential primaries during the mid-term election? We clearly need to have a national consensus. As Chris Weber pointed out yesterday, our failure to agree on national standards is an invitation for politicians from both parties to play dirty. The way a state awards its delegates, the huge discrepancies as to what kinds of voting machines different counties use, the varying laws on how different states certify election results: all of these are examples of a system in need of a drastic overhaul. We should insist that in national races (president, House and Senate) that one national standard should apply. If states want to tinker with local elections whose outcomes won't effect their cross-the-border neighbors, fine. The argument that "we've always done it the old way" is no longer valid. We've witnessed too many screw-ups, and endured too much partisan rancor in recent cycles.

So as to the question of a primary calendar, how best to go about deciding the national order? Perhaps we should have a single primary day, and a shorter campaign in which the debates were actually followed by the population. I've never been entirely comfortable with the weight that small states like Iowa and New Hampshire wield so much power in the process. Then again, front-loading the calendar with powerhouse states like Florida and California doesn't seem fair to the more rural parts of the country, either. What is clear, however, is that our current poker game approach to national elections is a recipe for even further election fatigue.