As each successive primary weeds out potential candidates, I am more convinced that Pennsylvanians are shortchanged by the process as it stands now. Since PA doesn't hold its primary until the end of April, issues that our voters may have raised are absent from the national public discourse, in this important presidential election year.
More importantly, candidates who would best represent our values may be weeded out of contention before our chance to choose.
Because PA's primary is so late, PA issues likely are never really brought to national attention, and that may be a reason why our state is lagging behind in so many important areas.
There are many many flaws in our political process and people really need to start waking up and smelling the music before we lose our country.
Finally it shouldn't matter whether you are Republican or Democrat to realize that PA holds its primary too late. Our state has 21 electoral votes and that is a substantial amount to not utilize our leverage in the national debate. We should be among the first states to weigh in with regard to presidential candidates.

Interesting, Mikeg. I just looked it up to see when the PA primary was--and it sure is late. However, is Iowa doing all that well?!

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Resident of Fishtown, Moderator of Fish/No. Libs/Kenzo forum, Real Estate Agent-Prudential Fox & Roach

Since I've never been to Iowa, I did a little research and found that their state is bigger than I thought. These three links give a little insight, spending 5 minutes reviewing.
Iowa
http://www.limitedgovernment.org/pub...s/Iesjan02.pdf
http://www.limitedgovernment.org/pub...s/Iesjan03.pdf
http://www.dcvote.org/pdfs/dcpopecon.pdf
The third is a comparison of the states - population, economies, number of representatives (electors for electoral college is senators plus reps I think).
Whether they do well or not though, they are able to affect the national direction of the presidential campaigns, and we are left rubber-stamping the choice others have already made.

electoral votes are senators and congressman. They count in thegeneral election. Delegates are for the primary. Each state has a lot more of them. I'm not sure who they are. I think the primary process is stupid. Why can't we do it like a regular election? Oh,well.

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Jason
Lynn Swann 06'

"Individualism is absent when other peoples' standards, not reality and reason, are ones primary guide."

so is only have a two party system but it's been that way since Wilson got in b/c of TR with th exception of Perot. i may even become a parliamentarian our selection is so bad.

Here's one of my more humbling moments: before the last primary, I changed from being a registered Liberal to a registered Democrat (that's not the humbling part-lol) so that I could vote for Bill Bradley. Well, I consider myself to know quite a bit about politics, and even was able to pass out of the required government class in high school...Okay, so I vote in my first primary. I'm looking and I pull the lever for Bradley. Then I looked and saw about 20 other people next to Gore's name for the electoral college. I figured, "Well, I know Gore is going to win the Dem ticket so I'll vote for his electorates." I didn't understand they were for Gore over Bradley. So basically I had one vote for Bradley and 19 for Gore. Sweet.

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Resident of Fishtown, Moderator of Fish/No. Libs/Kenzo forum, Real Estate Agent-Prudential Fox & Roach

What's the liberal party? Is that from NY state? I have noticed up there that the "Liberal" and "Conservative" parties either put a candidate in the contests or they just endorse the Dem or Rep. I've only seen those parties in NY though.
Anyway, PA is completely taken out of the process. Anyone know why we don't just conduct the presidential primary like a regular election? I suspect it's to keep the complete disconnect between the people and our government. All of those candidates in both major parties are appointed by the powerful interests and have nothing to do with our preferences.

PA and Philly are lagging behind because of local and state elected officials, plain and simple.

The primary schedule is based on the decisions of each party. Governors have the power to move the primaries up if they would like. I believe the governor of New Mexico did that this year. I was planning on running as a delegate for Joe Lieberman. I sent in all of the official paperwork to the PA Department of State. I was in touch with the Nat'l Lieberman campaign and ironically received my petition forms the same day Joe dropped out of the election. To run as a delegate in PA you need to obtain the signatures of 250 registered Democrats (or 250 registered Republicans if you are running to be a delegate for a Republican candidate) from your National Congressional District and there are only 3 weeks to do so as the petition forms have to be in by Feb. 17th (this is the same for statewide elections; however the amount of signatures varies by office).

But back to the primary which is on April 27th. It is very important for everyone to vote in this primary even if Kerry has the nomination locked up. Primaries in Philly are really like general elections because Philly is so Democratic. All of the State Representatives are up for re-election and the Dems who win their primary will face little to no opposition in the general election. Some of the State Senators, like Vince Fumo, are also up for re-election. Additionally there are US Reps who are running and some Dems and some Reps face tough primary battles. This is where you votes make a difference as again in many cases the person who wins the primary (who may only do so by a slim margin) will easily win the general election just due to one party being especially dominant in a given geographic district.

Most of the time the liberal party endorses the Democratic party but occasionally they will put up a pretty radical person--for instance, they will endorse a pro-legalization of marijuana candidate. In New York, the choices always included Liberal, Conservative, Green, Right-to-Life and a couple of others. Is it not the same here? I've only voted twice here in the mayoral race, and a local Bucks County election.

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Resident of Fishtown, Moderator of Fish/No. Libs/Kenzo forum, Real Estate Agent-Prudential Fox & Roach

I've been voting from my Philadelphia address but by absentee ballot the last several years. In the last presidential race I know Nader was the Green candidate, but I don't recall there being any liberal or conservative party candidates. I've only heard that discussed in NY. In the last Gubernatorial race there the conservatives had their own candidate to challenge Pataki. A guy named Tom Golisano, I believe from Rochester, who actually had a good bit of support around the state.
Anyway, rlc, I will be voting in the April 27th primary only because it does greatly effect local races. As far as the presidential race, I think we have more say over who the next dictator of Iraq will be. :roll: