Alchemist, you actually need to look up Ron Paul. He's been "WALKING THE WALK" for over three decades.

It's as simple as this: Forget all the crap the media feeds us. We need to build support for the candidate that can WALK THE WALK and has a TRACK RECORD of CHANGE and PROGRESS. A candidate who's only obligation is to the people, NOT SPECIAL INTERESTS. Do a search for Dennis KUCINICH, take a look at his position, he is the True Democrat. Get to primaries and vote your heart! We can make a difference and every voice counts. This is a real opportunity to make a change that generation upon generation will benefit from!
I just noticed the posts for Ron Paul. He's a great guy, and the Media is ignoring him much like Dennis Kucinich. However, I don't see a track record with Ron Paul showing that he 'WALKS THE WALK'. Right now it looks like he's just talk. Vote your Heart! Vote for Kucinich in Primaries and beyond!

We see the complete and total blackout of the most important candidate in either party, Ron Paul, by ALL the major media networks. Heck, the FAUX "News" network even banned him from the debates. Ron Paul got 10% in the Iowa primary, twice what Guliani got. But you're NOT GOING TO SEE THAT ON ANY MAJOR NEWS NETWORK. They prefer to pretend he doesn't exist rather than to acknowledge that he is the Republican party's ONLY chance to defeat Hilary's evil rear! GOOGLE RON PAUL! GOOGLE RON PAUL! GOOGLE RON PAUL!

Which state is first is all about a desire for clout in the presidential race and the opportunity to collect more money from the candidates than the candidates collect from the state's citizens.

Bill, in answer to your question:
We have to reinforce to our lawmakers, the elected officials in Congress and Senate that we as a people deserve to have our votes counted equally as was intended by our forefathers. This means legislative action to require a standard national presidential primary election day every four years. The legislature must be written to ensure that the fact that this is a national event affecting the entire country and thus overrides the rights and perogatives of individual states. We should expect court battles from states like New Hampshire who will have to void sections of their state constitution which by the way should be deemed unconstitutional from a national standpoint as their "Rights" infringe upon the rights of numerous other Americans, in such magnitude as to be justifiable in invalidating their state constitutional rights. Of course it would be best to eliminate the electoral college while we are at it. One person, one vote should be the rule, not an estimate. But segregate the legislation, tying these together will only decrease any chance of the two changes being passed and upheld.

And to those who believe that their little states will have less say, I say you are correct, those little states have way too much say now and create a un-Democratic process. But will you have less than an equal say? I doubt it. If the electoral college is eliminated and primaries are held on the same day, you will have full rights to choose from the full list of candidates in the primaries and with a national focus, the presidential primaries will be reoriented towards where they should be: on national issues and not regional pandering.

Although I agree that there needs to be a better nomination system, the advantage of having early primaries in small states is that it forces all candidates to go into retail politics and actually interact with the voters. If big states had early primaries then it gives a distinct advantage to popular, well-known, and financially strong candidates who can rely on name-recognition and expensive TV ads to get out their message. Thus, Iowa and NH give lesser-known and poorer candidates a better opportunity to be able to succeed as well.

the whole electorial college is a joke, and is designed to give weathly rural people more powerful votes than poor urban people's.

how about do away with the electoral college? that's a long-needed move!

Florida did not cause Al Gore to lose the 2000 election. Had he won his home state of Tennessee he would have won the election. He lost by four and Tennessee had eleven electoral votes at that time…Yes,the Florda voters and dumb and senile but we need some place to put those people…lol.

New Hampshire is HARDLY a democratic state- state motto is "Live Free or Die" and it is one of the most libertarian states in the country. While not conservative along the lines of Religious right states, it is very independant. The primary is important because it allows candidates with small budgets to have an impact via the "town meeting" format and get onto the national spotlight. Without a State like NH leading, only the candidates with the clout to court the corporate media would have a shot at getting any attention- this is bad enough already for our democratic system. While not ethinically diverse, the socioeconomic and cultural (in the sense of "american" culture- not ethnic culture) range is representative of the country, with wealthy Boston suburbintes and power elites in the south to die poor rural folks in the north with every thing in between. This is the one place where they can all have an equal forum to challenge candidats one on one and make their voices heard, as opposed to canned media blitzes in larger states (disclaimer: I grew up in NH, but have not lived there since I was 19, 12 years ago).

Why should one small state (i.e. New Hampshire) have such an important say on the next president? Why, because their state legislature made up a silly law stating that they must hold the nation's first ever primary? This is silly. I live in Illinois, by the time we get to vote, the contest will all be over because important states like Iowa, New Hampshire and Rhode Island had their say.

I think all states should hold their primaries on one single day. Thus every voter in every state has an equal say on one same day.

What's it going to take to fix this broken system? I live in KY where my primary vote in May will be meaningless.

When Hillary wins NH and carries the nation in November! Rock on Hillary!!

Alan in Baltimore.

There is no possible way I could agree with you more. How do we cause this to happen?

To Greg and ALL;

WE ARE STILL AT WAR IN IRAQ.

Sorry that our Voting for the NEXT President might inconvenience your Holiday shopping eating, enjoying your freedoms, you know ( ALL the things our service members are dieing for). But that’s to bad. We all have to just take one Holiday season and think about our voting and celebrate at the same time.

What will Iowa do about the state law requiring Iowa's caucuses to be held at least 8 days prior to any other state's event to determine presidential preferences? My math isn't great, but I believe Iowa's Jan. 3rd date and New Hampshire's Jan. 8th date are only 5 days apart.

Amazing. Traditional Democratic strongholds purporting to be the voice of America. Sort of goes against the stated purpose of the Democratic party. Election day is election day. We should have primary day, period. Let everyone's voice count equally.

Then again, our forefather's really didn't subscribe to this view, otherwise we wouldn't have the electoral college. Raw counts - majority rules. Then again, we would have had a different bonehead in office in 2001 had that been the case.

Maybe we're just not smart enough, but a few states that underrepresent the U.S. population only extrapolate that effect exponentially.

Do away with early primaries and caucuses.

Rhode Island will hold the first primary of the 2012 presidential election cycle on January 8, 2009.
Delaware and Hawaii will be the following week.

does that mean the news media will be reporting nonstop before christmas up in new hampsire even more then now?

Good, Lets move the Florida Primary to January 7,2008… our vote does not count anyway

So on January 8th Ron Paul will win the NH primary!

Take that, rest of America.