On Thursday, by a vote of 50 to 48, the U.S. Senate “rejected a Democratic resolution to withdraw most American combat troops from Iraq in 2008.� Two Senators were not present to vote on this important bill. One was Tim Johnson (D-SD), who continues to recuperate from “a severe brain hemorrhage in December.� The other was John McCain (R-AZ), who “was campaigning in Iowa at the time of the vote.� Though the next Republican nominee for President won’t be officially decided until September of 2008, seventeen-and-a-half months from now, McCain opted to put his future political ambitions ahead of his current political responsibilities. Why would the self-styled “maverick� Senator do that?

Perhaps because he is not just running for President but running out of time. Though next year’s Republican National Convention is scheduled for September 1-4, the Iowa caucus will occur on January 14. Soon thereafter—indeed, in a matter of weeks—the nominations for both major parties could be all but sewn up, as reported here by the McClatchy Newspapers:

Presidential nominations could be decided by February

In the not-so-distant past, general-election campaigns for president started on Labor Day, kicking off a nine-week contest between the Democratic and Republican nominees.

Now, thanks in part to action taken Thursday, party nominations may be settled effectively by next Valentine’s Day, sending the two major-party nominees off on a nine-month slugfest for the White House.

California on Thursday moved its presidential primary up to next Feb. 5, joining a torrent of states that are rushing to accelerate voting in primaries and caucuses for party nominees.

After a brief campaign in January in which candidates will interact with voters face to face in four small states – Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina – next year’s presidential campaign is likely to explode into a de facto national primary the first week in February, with as many as 23 states voting Feb. 5.

Some state legislatures are still weighing what to do, but if all those that are considering Feb. 5 end up choosing it, those states would comprise 192 million Americans, 2 out of every 3, more than enough to effectively settle the nominations.

“Is this any way to pick a president? The answer is no. This is ridiculous,” said Bill Galvin, the secretary of state in Massachusetts and co-chairman of the National Association of Secretaries of State’s Subcommittee on Presidential Primaries.

He said the voting would come too early and too fast for people to pay meaningful attention.

“Most Americans won’t have a say in choosing the presidential nominee, and those that do will have a few weeks at most to make up their minds,” Galvin said. [full text]

Galvin is correct. While it is understandable that states might wish to maximize their political influence and grab their fair share of the national spotlight, it makes little sense to allow them to rush the stage en masse and elbow for position before the audience is even seated. This sort of mob behavior is not only “ridiculous� but risky. And one big risk, as noted in an earlier post on this topic, is that piling on in such a fashion “will further elevate the role that wealth—or the lack thereof—plays in American politics and further limit the breadth and diversity of choices available to the voting public.� The McClatchy Newspapers article seems to concur:

A Feb. 5 coast-to-coast mega-primary puts a premium on candidates with well-known names, deep campaign treasuries and extensive organizations. That’s yet another edge for front-running candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, both Democrats, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, both Republicans.

To campaign in simultaneous primaries in California, Texas, Illinois, Florida and New Jersey, for example, a candidate will be forced to rely on expensive TV advertising and an extensive volunteer organization.

Candidates from small states with limited campaign budgets will have an even harder time breaking through than in the past. The new schedule could build an insurmountable wall for today’s second-tier candidates, such as Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a Democrat, or Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a Republican. [full text]

The time has come to restore—or perhaps initiate—some order and fairness to one of the most important processes this nation engages in. Selecting a nominee for the highest office in the land should be fair and free for all—not an unfair free-for-all. A system such as the American Plan, which is favored by the organization FairVote (and described here), deserves to be quickly enacted. In the absence of any such reform, the only thing that will be primary in the electoral process is the unabated influence of powerful and moneyed interests.