"Still, why did so many states move up? It must have been desirable. Earlier votes are more desirable than late votes. Later voters get shafted by being given less desirable votes to cast."
A combination of reasons. Partly, states are misguided, they think earlier is inherently better when it actually isn't. If you're state #3 following a few days after NH, and there are no more primaries for a few weeks after than, then state #4 is actually in a much better place than you are. But it's not a simple rule, and "earlier is better" sounds simple and plausible so it's beguiling. Partly it's because some states were trying to play chicken with IA and NH hoping they could be first, and first clearly is a good place to be. And partly, it's because there's a prisoners' dilemma aspect to it: If you're a single state, with control over your own date but not the calendar as a whole, moving up may be the one thing you can do that has a good probability of improving your position, even though the more states move up, the worse it is for all of them.
"I'm still not convinced that the modern news channels, seemingly always starved for real news to report, would let the story drop, and would always be hyping expectations between primaries."
The news cycle is short in the traditional media. If they focus on a story, they concentrate it temporally, overhyping it for a short time and drowing everything else out, but after a while it's time to move on to the next thing. In the case of a primary election result, "a while" is unlikely to be more than a week. By next week, something new has happened and they'll latch onto it. Something someone said at a debate; some shift in the polls; a weird new campaign ad from an outside group; a "sexy" story some newspaper dug up about a candidate's past... these things are always coming up, it just takes a week or so before they can break through.
If a story is going to be kept alive for significantly longer than about 4-6 days, it's going to be kept alive by nontraditional media like blogs, or word of mouth, or "most emailed" meters, or YouTube. But those sources are able to focus on many things at once, to view primary results in better perspective, to filter analysis through better, and to carry over more material from before the last primary.
Regarding your meter of proper and improper influences: 1. I have to extrapolate which things you think are improper because you leave a lot out 2. I believe the influences you consider improper are always going to be important 3. I'm quite sure that having a national primary would make things worse, not better, according to your meter
For #3, consider: If we had a national primary last week, chances are very high that Hillary Clinton would've won, not because people voted "their conscience, undiluted", or based purely on issue positions and rhetoric, but mainly because she was considered the heir apparent and was ahead in all the national polls. State-by-state primaries can often be an antidote to that kind of effect.
no subject
A combination of reasons. Partly, states are misguided, they think earlier is inherently better when it actually isn't. If you're state #3 following a few days after NH, and there are no more primaries for a few weeks after than, then state #4 is actually in a much better place than you are. But it's not a simple rule, and "earlier is better" sounds simple and plausible so it's beguiling. Partly it's because some states were trying to play chicken with IA and NH hoping they could be first, and first clearly is a good place to be. And partly, it's because there's a prisoners' dilemma aspect to it: If you're a single state, with control over your own date but not the calendar as a whole, moving up may be the one thing you can do that has a good probability of improving your position, even though the more states move up, the worse it is for all of them.
"I'm still not convinced that the modern news channels, seemingly always starved for real news to report, would let the story drop, and would always be hyping expectations between primaries."
The news cycle is short in the traditional media. If they focus on a story, they concentrate it temporally, overhyping it for a short time and drowing everything else out, but after a while it's time to move on to the next thing. In the case of a primary election result, "a while" is unlikely to be more than a week. By next week, something new has happened and they'll latch onto it. Something someone said at a debate; some shift in the polls; a weird new campaign ad from an outside group; a "sexy" story some newspaper dug up about a candidate's past... these things are always coming up, it just takes a week or so before they can break through.
If a story is going to be kept alive for significantly longer than about 4-6 days, it's going to be kept alive by nontraditional media like blogs, or word of mouth, or "most emailed" meters, or YouTube. But those sources are able to focus on many things at once, to view primary results in better perspective, to filter analysis through better, and to carry over more material from before the last primary.
Regarding your meter of proper and improper influences:
1. I have to extrapolate which things you think are improper because you leave a lot out
2. I believe the influences you consider improper are always going to be important
3. I'm quite sure that having a national primary would make things worse, not better, according to your meter
For #3, consider: If we had a national primary last week, chances are very high that Hillary Clinton would've won, not because people voted "their conscience, undiluted", or based purely on issue positions and rhetoric, but mainly because she was considered the heir apparent and was ahead in all the national polls. State-by-state primaries can often be an antidote to that kind of effect.