The primary process needs to be overhauled

As the race to win the presidency continues, there are lots of conclusions that can already be drawn.

Perhaps the most important conclusion is that Iowa and New Hampshire have way too much power when it comes to setting the tone for the campaign.

In both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, candidates spent weeks canvassing the states with the hope of starting the presidential campaign with a bang.

Since then, the campaign has moved on to other states, but the power these two states have should concern us.

After all, candidates spent more than $50 million in those two states. That is a staggering sum even by the extravagant standards of today.

For weeks, candidates trudged through the cold and snow to press the flesh with as many people as possible. For the folks in those states, it must have been a wonderful experience.

Voters in very few states have the opportunity the folks there have. Candidates walk through diners and have rallies in high school gymnasiums so the chance to get close to one of them is a lot better than most places. Here in Tennessee, candidates will likely not venture outside of the big cities while campaigning.

The Iowa and New Hampshire results have played a big role in defining which candidates have momentum and are serious contenders.

So, this begs the obvious question: Should these states have this much power?

When compared to the demographics of the rest of the country, these two states aren't much like the rest of the nation. Both states are predominantly white with small black and Hispanic populations.

The states are mostly rural with no huge metropolitan areas yet the one million voters of those two states often play the role of king (or queen) maker before the other 200 million eligible voters get a chance.

Of course, the media onslaught in those states doesn't help. After Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won in Iowa, the media saturated the airwaves with news of his momentum and backed it up with polls that predicted he might win New Hampshire by more than 10 percent.

In contrast, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton was getting buried by the press who was reporting that her campaign was in big trouble and might be permanently derailed with a loss. She almost cried at one point.

Of course, that did not happen. Clinton won New Hampshire so the storyline shifted, and she became the "comeback kid" of the campaign. I don't really understand how a candidate can be a "comeback kid" after only one primary, but that is how the media spun her victory.

So, what can be done about the power these two small states have? There have been many suggestions regarding how the primary system can be re-structured.

Perhaps the best idea is for our country to go to a regional primary system, which was recently discussed in detail by USA Today. Under this system, voters in certain regions would all vote on the same day.

For example, the country could be divided into four separate regions: the Northeast, South, Midwest and West.

Primaries in each region would be held on the first Tuesday of the month in April, May, June and July.

To eliminate the possibility of one region having too much influence (like Iowa and New Hampshire do right now), there would be a rotation so no region would vote first in consecutive elections. For example, the Northeast could vote first in one presidential primary election. Then, the South could vote first in the following election and so forth.

The bottom line is a system like this would improve the primary system and provoke candidates into campaigning in more states instead of devoting so much time to Iowa and New Hampshire.

This proposed change is not meant to show disrespect to those two states. Their voters are to be commended for taking their votes so seriously.

However, other states deserve just as much attention as they get from candidates, and that is not happening right now.

Tennessee's primary is only two-and-a-half weeks away. How many visits from candidates (other than Fred Thompson who is a Tennessean) can you recall?

Not many, I bet.

And that is the problem.

Welcome to the big time Mr. Huckabee

When the calendar turns to 2008 in a few days, the race to elect our next president will intensify.

On Jan. 3, Iowa will hold its caucuses, and the candidates who do well there will pick up substantial momentum as they head into primaries in the coming weeks.

There will be little margin for error because this is the most front loaded primary season there has ever been. For example, more than 20 states will hold their primaries on Feb. 5 (including Tennessee).

To this point, the most interesting aspect of the race has been watching the rising and falling of candidates in the polls.

There is way too much emphasis put on polls during an election season, especially the general national polls that the mainstream media report the most. National polls really don't mean much because we don't elect a president (or a nominee for the two major parties) through a general national vote.

To use polls more effectively, it is important to look at the race on a state by state basis.

In reviewing the polls in Iowa in the last several weeks, the most interesting story has been the emergence of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as a major player.

For months, he languished in the single digits of most polls as he methodically got his face in front of the voters in that state. That has changed in the last several weeks as he has surged toward the top of most polls taken there.

When this happened, everything changed for his campaign. More money flowed in, the major television networks became more interested in putting him on their shows, and voters began listening a little more closely to what he had to say.

However, there was one specific moment when it became apparent that Huckabee had truly arrived as a candidate with a chance to win. This occurred when all the other Republican candidates took aim at him and began to criticize him.

After all, candidates don't typically start ripping someone until they view him as a threat. Until a few weeks ago, Republicans treated Huckabee as nothing more than a pesky fly that needed to be swatted away every now and then.

Now, folks are coming after him with a big can of Raid.

For example, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney attacked his record on taxes while he was Arkansas governor and implied that he was soft on crime and immigration.

Independent groups attacked him before Christmas for a television commercial he made that invoked the birth of Christ.

I guess this is an example of how politics is different than most other aspects of life.

In most areas of life, the stature of a person is often confirmed by how good his reputation is and the good comments people make about him.

However, in a political campaign, we can measure how popular a candidate is by all the negative things that are said about him. For Huckabee, he was just another likeable guy until he got popular then the big guns got unloaded on him.

For a long time, I didn't understand why presidential candidates put themselves through the meat grinder of negativity that they have to go through to win that office. It seemed like too big a sacrifice to me.

Finally, it dawned on me that all this negativity was a stamp of approval that a candidate had arrived as a genuine political force. After all, the measure of a candidate can many times be made by understanding who his critics are and how they criticize him.

As for Huckabee, please don't misinterpret this posting as an endorsement of him in any way. I don't publicly support candidates anymore. I don't put signs in my yard telling my neighbors who to vote for. I don't contribute money to campaigns. I only advocate that people study the candidates so they can make an informed vote.

It's just that watching the rise of Huckabee recently has been fascinating. In most campaigns, an unknown comes from out of the pack to create drama for a little while.

Will Huckabee be able to sustain his momentum? We'll find out starting Jan. 3.