You mistakenly refer to the USA as a ‘democracy’. The USA is not a democracy, she is a Constitutional Republic. BIG difference, and one that causes big problems.

The regional primary idea you support offers little or no improvement over the existing and totally corrupt system of choosing Presidential nominees.  It is particularly laughable here in Montana which has never amounted to as much as the “pitcher of warm spit” of which John Nance Garner spoke of the Vice Presidency 70 some years ago.  The issue now is the evil alliance between money and incumbency, and all politicians who have survived know it well.  We lament the shame that corruption brings to other countries, but fail to mention, much less admit, that corruption is what drives our own political system now.  We Montanans had no clearer proof than in 2006 when we learned that no member of Congress had taken more money from the infamous Jack Abramoff… who was cheating and stealing from native American tribes… than our own long-term Senator Conrad Burns.  Now, Burns, through his lawyers, claims he has been “exonerated.”  We know better.  Years ago, when a pornography case was before the Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said pornography is something you know when you see it.  It remains true today.  Political corruption is precisely the same as pornography.  Indeed, it more corrupting of decency and civil society than pornography itself.  In the leadup to the 2006 elections, we Montanans learned that no single member of the House of Representatives or the Senate had taken more money from Jack Abramoff than our own long-term Senator Conrad Burns.  We saw it, we knew it and we voted accordingly.  He has not been judged because, as we have also learned, GWBush’s “Justice” Department dispenses two kinds of justice.  One for Republican fat cats and another for the rest of us.  Twiddling with primary dates and arrangements will not end the corruption which has become pervasive in the American political system, especially during the past 7 years of the Bush administration.  Our first duty is to rid ourselves of this corruption, then we can look at primary election reform in the full light of day.