(Re-promoting a diary from February that’s timely… – promoted by odum)

Primaries can and should be healthy for the Democratic party. They certainly benefit voters by offering more and better choices and we should embrace the opportunities primaries offer to vet policies, candidates and ideas. 

The timing of post-Labor Day primary elections, however, will more likely hurt a winner.  Fall primaries risk being counter-productive to the democratic process because they occur too close to the General Election in November. 

Vermont's election year primary needs to happen earlier.  Town Meeting day (March) is too early, but June is late enough to do the job.  Once the calendar hits July & the summer months, it is too late to have a truly effective primary.

Scot nails it with his spot-on comment at the Open Thread, —

We Need A Primary

[W]e need a full fledged primary to rally the troops and get us engaged in taking out the Governor.

Deb, Susan, Doug and others would all be fantastic candidates. Everyone should dive in and may the best candidate win. I mean, when was the last time we had a three-way primary for Governor?

It will make the nominee stronger.

Could not agree more.

We need good candidates running in our primaries, and we need primaries that serve voters by showcasing our best candidates. We will continue to have neither as as long as the primary occurs in the fall rather than before the summer months.

More on better nominees and a better process, after the flip. . .

  — IT IS TIME TO DITCH THE SEPTEMBER PRIMARY —

Primaries are good for rallying troops, preparing candidates and sharpening campaign skills. They are great for all-around voter education and general awareness.  Vermont Democrats have been deprived of well fought primaries lately, and it's a shame.

The Democrats have an excellent bench, but a generally untested one too. The Democrats' bench is also populated by people who generally do not answer to voters, particularly liberal voters, in state-wide primary elections. The democratic process can do better, much better.

The current September primary is not challenger-friendly, and it is definitely not voter-friendly.  Unless the goal is to protect incumbents or to drag out intra-party campaigning until the last few weeks before the November election, there is no rationale for a September primary.

In this – the 21st Century media age of continual campaigning by incumbent office holders – there is no good rationale to run the primary all the way into September.

Voters do not need months and months of in-house/intra-party debates. The benefit of a normal (spring) primary date, is that we can see candidates differentiate themselves relative to how they will run the state for the better part of the campaign. The current calendar suffocates the process by dedicating most of election year to the contest within candidates' respective parties.  

Consider:

1. The September primary hurts primary winners because they spend the vast majority of their resources (particularly time, one of the biggest, most critical, resources) keeping the fight in-house.

2. The September primary hurts voters because it discourages potential candidates from entering into primaries in the first place, or a candidate may wait until it is realistically too late to enter. 

3.  The September primary REALLY hurts primary loser(s) who spend an entire summer campaigning for a job they will not have.  This dynamic discourages people from entering the primaries or running for office in the first place. (See #2).

4. The September primary hurts the eventual winner, particularly challengers to incumbents, because there is little time to shift gears and refocus on the incumbent. (See ## 1, 2 & 5))  The person most likely never to see a primary is your generic incumbent.  And incumbents love watching their future opponents drawing friendly fire up until a few short weeks before the November election. 

5.  The September primary REALLY hurts the primary winner. When candidates treat the voters to a particularly healthy and hard fought primary, the eventual mid-September winner has, effectively, LESS THAN TEN (10) BUSINESS DAY REMAINING to finish raising the bulk of money needed for General Election media buys.  Sure you want to have that fundraising done months earlier, but try it sometime.

The General Assembly is already considering changes to Title 17 (Vermont's election statutes) this session (For instance, see S. 35, it's a shitty bill but it's a start). The General Assembly badly needs to refocus on the primary date instead of focusing exclusively on fixing the decade old and unconstitutional finance provisions.  Setting a reasonable primary date needs to be the top priority.

The legislature needs to act now. It needs to fix its campaign finance problem and set a reasonable primary date. If the Legislature does not fix this problem THIS SESSION, it is not going to happen in time for 2010.  There is no time to waste. 

September primaries are anachronistic.

September primaries are incumbent protection rackets.

There are bills in the hopper to fix Vermont's invalid, unconstitutional and court-rejected campaign finance law. The first order of business should be to put into any new election laws a workable primary date.

Fix the primary and we take one big step toward fixing the problem of too little voter choice.