I'm sick of California and the West Coast going damn near LAST in having a say in the process

[One Black Sheep]

in the primaries!

This is so wrong. All the liberals and progressives are out here in the West (yes, I live out here as well ) And we deserve a more important place to decide the candidate!

California, Oregon and Washington should all move up their primaries to damn near Iowa. If not all three, then at the very LEAST California. It should go Iowa is first, then California!

[hill2016]

1. well then

why should white liberals have such a large early say?

[upaloopa]

6. Actually whites are a minority in CA when all minorities are joined.

Minorities are 51% of CA population

[hill2016]

8. the OP mentioned

Washington and Oregon as well

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Yeah, screw those people, huh.

New hampshire and iowa are such bastions of diversity, too.

[One Black Sheep]

9. Because liberals and progressives are an important part of the Democratic base

We are not being represented with the proper respect and significance in this process, IMHO.

[LonePirate]

2. CA voted in February during the 2008 primary season.

[Agschmid]

27. Yup.

[PepperHarlan]

3. Oregon and Washington voted weeks ago

[Retrograde]

4. We went early in 2008

And the candidate we picked in the Democratic primary went on to lose the nomination to Obama (my own candidate dropped out by the election day itself - a drawback to voting early by mail).

[Hortensis]

24. Good point. OP, your vote counts,

but you want the winner called after you vote, which is hardly unreasonable. But if it happens before, surely you can take it? After all, it would be very wrong and dysfunctional for California, with something like 548 delegates, to vote early. Many millions of Californians, including my husband and I, have had no problem handling this great adversity like mature adults.

Coming last in a long line for a public bathroom--now that can be a problem.

[PowerToThePeople]

5. If california goes sanders

We could just start a new west of the rocky mts left leaning nation.

[RandySF]

7. On this I agree

But, for some reason, they refuse to move the rest of the primary ballot to an earlier month alongside the presidential.

[mythology]

10. Because putting an enormous state second would help the lesser known candidate?

The first four states are small and demographically diverse for a reason. It allows a lesser known candidate to build a base of support.

Putting California and it's giant population, size and expensive media markets would make it harder for lesser known candidates to gain traction.

[One Black Sheep]

11. Public finance all elections then

that needs to be done anyhow.

[RKP5637]

34. That's the way it should work!!! n/t

[Exilednight]

22. Iowa and NH aren't very diverse.

The AA community is less than 3% of the population, the and Hispanics make up approximately 5% of the population.

The state that comes the closest to matching the countries demographics as a whole is Illinois.

Personally I would go for a rotating system by dividing the country into thirds. Each third of the country selects one state to go on the first day. Once a state goes first it goes to the back of the line and during the next presidential election each section picks a new state to go first.

[Hortensis]

25. Glad someone made this point!

[Octafish]

12. Takes the Liberals out of the equation.

Lot of Progressives, too.

[Bluestar]

13. It was moved back to June to save the cost of a special election

California always has an election in June. The legislature decided it didn't make sense to pay for a special primary earlier.

[thelordofhell]

14. If California went 2nd, then Bernie would never have had a chance to win

The time frame for changing parties and requesting the proper ballots would have been far past the point of the freshly declared Bernie to do any good in California......He would have lost and lost big......to the point where it would almost be useless to go on from there.

[Tarc]

15. Do you remember 2008, when California was a part of Super Tuesday?

Why did they move back to June?

[onenote]

16. All the liberals and progressives are out there in the west?

Tell that to the folks in Vermont, among other places. Tell it to the folks in dozens of communities in states around the country.

By the way, California was a relatively early primary state in 2008 and the winner of that primary didn't end up winning the nomination.

I know the news from tonight is hard to take (and it would've been hard to take tomorrow if it hadn't been announced tonight).

But let's try not to go entirely off the deep end.

[Lars39]

17. All primaries on the same day.

Full transparency. Should be illegal for media to call it before the votes have all been counted.

[HereSince1628]

18. I can't see how that makes the process better.

I don't think the order must be what it is, and I think there are ways of avoiding loading the primary season so that early events have more influence than later ones.

But unless there is some big value I don't see, no thanks. I don't want consolidation of any thing political. Democracy as a process really requires promotion of access to different voices with different ideas.

Protecting the process so that it cultivates new voices identifying new problems and new solutions when they are still small and relatively unknown is really enormously valuable.

[NCTraveler]

19. It would actually be beyond exciting if the race was close.

They set themselves up to be queen maker. It just didn't work out that way. Think about this. If both NJ and Cali were last in '08. If I remember correctly they weren't. I think that is the scenario the state parties were hoping for. Clintons lead is simply too big for it to matter.

[ucrdem]

20. I'm loving it

we haven't gotten this much attention since the San Francisco earthquake (the 1906 one)

[wyldwolf]

21. I'm sick of Iowa and NH going first

[Nye Bevan]

26. The establishment would LOVE large states to go first instead.

Much more money required to advertise and build name recognition, more travel expenses, much less likelihood of a Dean or a Sanders insurgency breaking through to challenge the big-money establishment favorite.

[workinclasszero]

30. Yup. Heck if Cali voted first in this primary

It would have dealt a deathblow to pretty much unknown candidate Bernie Sanders right at the start!

Be careful what you wish for folks.

[Sancho]

23. You realize that if CA had gone first, instead of Iowa, Bernie would be toast much earlier...

At the beginning he had no money, no recognition, and no rallies. If CA had gone first - Hillary would have trounced Bernie before he got any traction.

If Hillary had won 60-70% in CA in Feb. or March for example, then a caucus in Iowa would be worthless in May or June.

The rural caucus states are "easy" for new candidates to get their name out there. That's exactly what Bernie did. It got him some money, some TV time, and a place on the ballots.

[DonCoquixote]

28. if people want tokeep this system,fine

I say Florida, California and Texas get together and have their primaries the friday before Super Tuesday

[HereSince1628]

29. Maybe California should divide into multiple regional primaries on different dates

placed across the entire primary season. Let it function more like the mini-nation state that it mostly is.

If they did that they'd have influence in multiple super-Tuesdays (more influence for CA and keeping CA issues talked about during the entire primary season) and it would probably more accurately track the developing/shifting sentiments of CA voters across the entire campaign season.

Why have all the eggs in one basket at all???

[bigwillq]

31. Cali went early in 2008 (nt)

[Warren DeMontague]

33. 50 million people on the west coast are ignored, which is why the beltway still thinks

Pot legalization is a giant joke- or a 3rd rail.

Like on marriage equality, theyll catch up eventually.

As for the primaries, i think the order should be random, or rotated every 4 years.

[goldent]

35. Somebody has to be last

Besides if California voted for Bernie it might well have an effect on the process - at least it would make the convention more interesting. If the race were a little closer, CA might actually be the decider.