National Presidential Caucus for 2012 Reform

FairVote is pleased to support National Caucus in its call for vigorous and widespread discussion and deliberation about how best to reform the presidential nomination calendar for future elections. There indeed are few more important debates than about how best to promote equality, responsiveness and accountability in elections of our president. Political parties have the power to improve how we nominate presidents, and my experience has been that leaders of both major parties share many goals in common: an interest in more states and voters holding meaningful contests, higher voter participation and full debate within the party of different perspectives. We believe agreement between major party leaders on a better schedule is possible. Perhaps the most obvious first step to take place before 2012 is to agree to delay the timing of contests.[MORE]

Pushing back the Primaries:
Don Means leads the movement to fix the primaries as Director of the National Caucus for 2012 Reform

The next presidential election year is 2012, so we ought to have a full four years to recover from this past primary season extravaganza, right? Well, unless we do something now about our presidential nomination process, we will likely see campaigns firing up in early 2011, and we’ll start heading to our polls and caucus meetings before we’ve even had a chance to take down our Christmas decorations or to light our Menorahs. Still, you might think to yourself, “We’ve still got three whole years before we need to worry about this stuff!” But, the truth is that we need to start this conversation now if we want to have a realistic opportunity to change the system before the next election. Leading this crucial conversation is the National Caucus for 2012 Reform headed by Don Means. His site at www.NationalCaucus.org emphasizes the importance of effecting change now by working with the GOP and Democratic parties to change their rules. [MORE]

FairVote Issues New Report on How Parties Can Improve Their Primaries

FairVote's "Fix the Primaries" campaign has improved the dialogue about how the parties can run fairer, more efficient contests in 2012. Right to Vote Director Adam Fogel and Executive Director Rob Richie have just released a new article in the Policy Perspective series, Delegating Democracy: How the Parties Can Make their Nominating Contests More Democratic, which examines six proposals that would promote democratic values in both parties' presidential nominating contests.[MORE]

Tom Gangale Releases New Book on Reforming Presidential Primaries

Tom Gangale is the author of the American Plan for reforming the presidential nomination process, which is gaining support across America and the national and state committees of both parties and on the editorial pages of national newspapers, including The New York Times. His new book From the Primaries to the Polls: How to Repair America's Broken Presidential Nomination Process makes the case for reform, and how to achieve it. [MORE]

Fix The Primaries Barnstorms the Media

The Fix The Primaries project is sparking widespread media attention to our calls for parties to institute more democratic processes to pick their presidential nominees. FairVote's Rob Richie has appeared on dozens of radio and television programs, including national programs Bloomberg Television, Democracy Now and FAIR's Counterspin.

[Democracy Now interviews Rob Richie on the role of superdelegates]
[Rob Richie on FAIR's Counterspin ]

Fix The Primaries Profile & More!

Fix The Primaries, was profilied by The Nation's John Nichols, and FairVote staff have graced the pages of newspapers and journals all across the country as primary season heats up. It's a great time to talk about a sensible primary schedule.

FairVote executive director Rob Richie is also hitting the airwaves with frequent appearances on radio, talking about what the primaries really mean for our democracy. Listen to an interview and watch a special TV series below.

[FairVote Election Guide: Understanding Super Tuesday]
[The Nation on FixThePrimaries.com]
[The DesMoines Register quotes Rob Richie]
[FairVote on TV Series American Crossroads]
[Democracy Now interviews Rob Richie on frontloading of primaries]
[Rob Richie Does KPFK Pacifica Radio]

FairVote's Rob Richie is Featured Analyst

Hearst-Argyle Television's special on reforming the presidential primary process has aired on local news stations around the nation as the candidates gear up for the Iowa caucuses. Airing in several episodes, the special can be viewed online.