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Let's say Texas went third instead of Nevada. Wouldn't Hillary have scored a large victory in that large state back in January, before the Obama phenomenon went national?
If South Carolina went first, wouldn't many more blacks -- who had been waiting to see if whites would go for Obama -- have stayed with Hillary? Wouldn't that, in turn, have changed the dynamic among black voters around the country?
Of course, this thought exercise could be played out a large number of ways, with the end results favoring either candidate.
Which leads me to my larger point:
Since the standing of the candidates at any point in time is affected by the sequence of states which preceded that point, isn't it inappropriate to a)ask a candidate who has not been mathematically or financially eliminated to drop out before all the voters have had their say, and b) order the primaries in anything other than a random sequence? Or have anything other than a single national primary? Do we really get the best nominee if s/he has been chosen by vote of only 2/3 of the country?
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