Primarily wrong

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS looking at ways to tinker with its presidential primary schedule for 2008. It’s a commendable impulse. The primary season has become a frenzied blur as more and more states have elbowed their way to the top of the calendar to remain players in the process.

Alas, the leading proposals the party will consider at a meeting Saturday would make things worse, not better. To counter the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire, the first states to hold a caucus and a primary, the party may schedule two to four caucuses between the two. The idea is to allow more diverse states more of a say early on, including a Southern state with a sizable black population and a Southwestern state with a significant Latino vote.

There are two reasons why this is a terrible idea. First, moving some state caucuses ahead of New Hampshire would further front-load the primary calendar. Having so many contests so early in the year minimizes the chances of a truly competitive contest in which a lesser-known candidate can prevail over time. In 1984, only eight states held their presidential primaries before March, but by 2004 that number had risen to 28. California moved its contest from June to March that year -- only to find it was still too late to matter much.

It’s also a mistake to give more weight to caucus states at the expense of primary states. Caucuses, which typically require people to assemble and speak up for a candidate, are less democratic, and more dominated by party activists, than primaries. About 218,000 voters participated in the New Hampshire primary in 2004, compared to 124,331 in the caucus in Iowa, a state with more than twice the population. The last thing the party needs is to further dilute the influence of individual voters and strengthen the voice of interests such as organized labor.

There is a better way to broaden participation in the nomination process, which would force candidates to campaign in more regions and in more diverse states. The party should consider an ambitious overhaul of the process to create a system of regional primaries that rotate over time and are scheduled to ensure that primary campaigns once again last throughout the spring of an election year. That was the recommendation issued this fall by the nonpartisan Commission on Election Reform chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Unfortunately, leaders of both political parties are loath to address the front-loading of the calendar because they feel the sooner they have a nominee, the better chance he stands in the general election. This is flawed conventional wisdom, as the experience of John Kerry attests.

The other reason not to expect ambitious reform to the process is that everyone has an interest in pandering to Iowa and New Hampshire -- at least anyone who harbors presidential aspirations does. And in politics, that’s just about everyone.