Dave Barry on the US Primary System

Written before the Florida primary,Dave Barry’s comments are still worth reading. Without doing much of his usual Barryisms, he uses the painful reality to absolutely skewer the US system of nominating presidents. Heres a little taste:

Most of the candidates ignored Wyoming and focused on the New Hampshire primary, except Rudy Giuliani, who’s following a shrewd strategy, originally developed by the Miami Dolphins, of not entering the race until he has been mathematically eliminated. After New Hampshire came Michigan, where the ballot listed all the Republicans, but only certain Democrats — including Chris Dodd, who had already dropped out if the race — but not including Barack Obama or John Edwards.

After Michigan came the Nevada caucuses, in which Hillary Clinton got more votes but Barack Obama got more delegates. (If you don’t understand how that could happen, then you have never been to a casino.)

Of course, there’s much more that could be said–like the way the media colludes with the party brass to force out intelligent candidates they deem “marginal.” Or the way most democracies have a system that incorporates the wisdom of smaller parties, in parliamentary coalitions–rather than our all-our-nothing two-party system.

I’ve written about this before; here’s my seven-point plan for US electoral reform, published in this space on December 17, 2007.

But read it and have a good laugh–and then a good cry.