The Problem with Primaries

[Geee]

National Review:

Our unsatisfactory nomination process

The weakest part of our political system is the presidential-nomination process. And it’s not coincidental that it’s the part of the federal system that finds least guidance in the Constitution.

There is no provision in the Constitution that says that Iowa and New Hampshire vote first. The idea of giving any two states a preferred position in the process of choosing a president would surely have struck the Framers as unfair.

But we are stuck with Iowa and New Hampshire voting first because no politician who contemplates ever running for president — i.e., most politicians — wants to arouse the ire of the political and journalistic establishments of Des Moines and Manchester.
Another feature of the nominating system is that it tends to exclude those with experience in foreign and military policy, the two areas in which presidents tend to have the greatest leeway.

Dwight Eisenhower did have such experience. And Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush had been vice presidents with varying degrees of involvement in foreign policy and military command.

But the other six presidents of the last 60 years had to learn by doing. And Ford’s ascent came not through the nomination process but through the 25th Amendment.