Indiana has been basking in the warm glow of national attention, as the presidential primary race has reached a white-hot temperature here in the Hoosier State. The candidates have risen to the challenge, criss-crossing the state in a mad rush to scoop up every available vote before Tuesday.
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel like this every four years instead of every, say, 20? Indiana has a terrible spot in the calendar, and has for years. Most of the other states already have made their choices. It’s usually a done deal by the time anyone asks us our opinion. It’s only an accident of this unprecedented election cycle that we even have a say in this crazy process at all. Usually, no one has any reason to care about anything we say.
What will it take for the Democratic and Republican parties to realize Iowa and New Hampshire don’t necessarily represent the demographics of the rest of the country? Iowa has been first since 1972. That’s more than 40 years. Isn’t it time for a change? What if we rotated the honors around? Why does it have to be the same old calendar every single time? We here in Indiana don’t need to be first every time, but once would be nice. We don’t even have to be first; even if we were somewhere near the front of the line, it would be a welcome change.
We all know change won’t come from within. The establishment has no reason to change, left to its own devices, as history has shown. And there are those in the early voting states who see candidates fawn over them for months at a time before a single caucus is held or vote is cast.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton racked up a huge delegate lead early in the race, as many Southern states went to the polls first. But, what does this really mean in a larger sense? It’s likely neither Democratic candidate is going to win any of those states in the general election, so what difference does it make who wins Mississippi? Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders won in Wisconsin and Michigan, both battleground states that could go either way in November. Yet, these victories may have come too late in the calendar to matter as much as they might have otherwise.
And Republican Party loyalists can’t be happy with how this mess is turning out. Would those in the #NeverTrump movement have a better shot if the order was changed? We’ll never know unless we try it.