New Hampshire's Peculiar Institution

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Thomas Gangale

Two centuries ago, when southern statesmen wanted to defend the indefensible and mention the unmentionable, they referred to their states' enslavement of African Americans as their "peculiar institution;" peculiar in the sense that it was specific to the economic needs of the agrarian South and to the historical development of its culture. It was perfectly legitimate. After all, slavery had been practiced all over the world at one time or another.

However, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, moral norms were changing. The Enlightenment had brought forth the concept of human dignity, and the founders of the American republic, being children of that Enlightenment, had brought forth a government dedicated to human equality. In this changing world, any argument in favor of privilege based on history and ancestry was increasingly indefensible.

Today, the white homeland of New Hampshire argues for its continued privilege of holding the first presidential primary of the campaign season. It argues for keeping the rest of the nation in political second-class status. It clings to this position on the basis of tradition in the face of a changing America, a more diverse America that legitimately calls for opening the political process to broader participation, broader both ethnically and geographically.

As New Hampshire's position becomes more difficult to defend, statements coming out of the Granite State harden. We hear impassioned appeals to its "traditional key role in picking Presidential nominees," and threats to move the state s presidential primary into December 2007 to stay ahead of other states moving their primaries into January 2008.

Former New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Joseph Keefe has ominously declared that if the DNC commission authorizes other states to leap ahead of the New Hampshire primary, "We will resist that by whatever means necessary." Similar intemperate rhetoric came out of the slave states 150 years ago.

New Hampshire could spare the nation a looming political war by acknowledging the march of progress and by displaying a generosity of spirit. Its reign as the "first in the nation primary" has an honored place in American history, but it no longer serves a useful purpose.

Contrast New Hampshire's insistence on perpetuating electoral apartheid with the new vision that California Democrats have offered the nation. In January 2006, the California Democratic Party endorsed a comprehensive plan to reform the presidential nomination process, a plan that is fair to all states. Known as the American Plan, it spreads the nomination calendar across ten intervals of time and randomly selects the order of the states, so that from one presidential election cycle to the next, any given state would have an opportunity to be earlier or later in the calendar. The plan selects a few small states (not necessarily Iowa and New Hampshire) to lead off the presidential primary season. This would allow underfunded grassroots campaigns to score early victories and build momentum going into later, bigger, and more expensive contests.