primar-ez

this may be a hard concept to grasp: why not try a little common sense for a change?

states, candidates, and political parties share a common interest in resolving the primary election mess.

if states cooperate, iowa and new hampshire can continue to go first, then about a dozen states (including DC) can hold events each week, and the 11 biggest states can go last and decide the outcome.

big states that feel left out of nominee selection can regain a decisive voice, not by going so early they alienate folk by making smaller states irrelevant, but by acting together to delay (till the last day) the primaries in 11 states whose votes add up to a majority.

it may be too complex to schedule if based on delegate counts, which vary by party and don't always correspond to electoral votes, but most states have a single primary election and don't want to hold two, and nothing is perfect anyway, so we may have to rely on electoral vote counts for a reasonable approximation of a balanced schedule that preserves suspense till the end.

here's how the count breaks down, using six election/caucus dates, which, of course, can be altered to make the primary season longer or shorter (and will almost certainly change after the next census):

7/1: IA [7/1 does not mean july 1. see key below. you'll figure it out.]
4/1: NH
40/12: 3(8)+4(4)
80/13: 5(5)+6(3)+7(3)+8(2)
136/13: 9(3)+10(4)+11(4)+12(1)+13(1)
271/11: 15(3)+17(1)+20(1)+21(2)+27(1)+31(1)+34(1)+55(1)

key:
40/12 = 12 states share a total of 40 electoral votes
3(8) = 8 states each have 3 electoral votes

oh, and btw, dems, when florida's legislature broke your rules by scheduling the primary too early, there's a real chance they did it to provoke the kind of internecine fight you're getting into now so voters will turn against you. better you should remind folk the gop majority is responsible for the trouble and should get thrown out of office for disfranchising voters (again!).