I agree...this is the kind of thoughtfullness that kos has completely passed over at Daily Kos. He is so obsessed with ending the IA/NH monopoly that he oversees how disastrous this current arrangement is to the nominating process.

A national primary would be the absolute worst development in decades, and this leapfronging of the states is making the process ridiculous. The only people this helps are establishment candidates with big bucks that can carpetbomb big states with non-stop ads.

We need reform, but hoping that this mess will make it all pretty for 2012 ignores the fact that should the Democratic nominee win the general, it would only hinder reform since the 2012 primaries would be nothing more than symbolic since the nomination will be the incumbent's by default. If our nominee doesn't win however, waiting for 2012 is moronic since this election is too important to mess around with the way the states have been doing.

A national primary would be better than the system that is emerging for 2007/2008. I don't like situations, like the one we are in now, where changing the rules at the last minute is a potential winning strategy. If the current system persists, we can expect candidates in 2012 to  build strategies around gaming the system, by getting their favorite states to move up the primary dates.

On the other hand, a national primary seems pretty impersonal, and even more vulnerable to manipulation by the same big corporations that have already purchased most of our political discourse.

Can someone tell me what Florida democrats, who are the minority party in both chambers and the Govenor's mansion, were supposed to do in order to prevent the primary from being moved up or what they can do in order to move the primary schedule back?

I honestly don't know so if someone more informed about this could answer my question i'd appreciate it

As I posted in an earlier diary, a national primary would not be as weighted to a well-known and -financed candidate if delegates were awarded by proportional vote per congressional district.  It's the winner-take-all formula (admittedly more common in Repub primaries than ours) that favors those christened as "inevitable" by the MSM.  

I've actually suggested that Iowa isn't really a bad first state, considering that it is one of the most ideologically representative states in the nation for both parties and because its relatively small population probably makes it financially less prohibitive for longshot candidates.  I would be happy with setting Iowa to be the traditional first state in the nation to decide delegates and give it a hard date with everyone else required to be behind it.

The thing that I hate is states having presidential primaries on different dates from primaries for other offices such as Congress and governor.  That always seemed wasteful to me.  Some states do presidential and Congressional primaries on the same day.  Others do not.

A national primary would basically guarantee that every 4 years low information/cult of personality voters would choose the best-funded, celebrity establishment candidate.  No one else would have a chance.  

With literally half the states all voting within a few weeks very early, and a likely splitting of delegates such that no one has a majority in either party, it may fall to the late voting states to decide the nominees.  We could see real campaigns among the last 2 or 3 candidates still standing in each party to compete for large blocks of delegates such as that of Pennsylvania, in April.  Would PA.'s be the largest block of delegates (winner-take-all) NOT voting in those first few weeks?

It seems that so much in the way we elect people is geared, not for electing good leadership, but for garnering good TV ratings.  This whole gridiron battle of two well financed and similar looking goliaths is anathema to almost any concept of democracy.  It's time that Progressive Democrats start raising their voice for the dismantling, not just of the primary system, but of the two party system. Of course this is just crazy talk because it is a matter of putting the concept of democracy for all above the concept of power for our party.  Corporate Democrats will always marginalize this idea because it seriously threatens the power base of corporations.  

This is not unlike American foreign policy in which we talk about the spread of democracy while we finance right-winged dictators.  The reason that we do that is because dictators are much easier to control.  Similarly, a two party system financed and run by corporate America works very well for the power elite.  Primaries are an important part of that system.

The whole thing is a cluster ... like so much of the nation. How about if the DNC and the RNC hold conventions but no one goes. Screw 'em all.