Justin Webb's America

The old-fashioned way

• Justin Webb
• 18 Dec 07, 04:32 AM GMT

Taking account of everything contributed after my first thoughts from here and having spent a fabulous day in the lovely town of Corning, Iowa (south of Des Moines by about 90 miles), I have a proposal: that every state in the Union share the honour of kicking off presidential elections, thus getting their moment in the sun every 200 years.

This is cumbersome, I know, but might address the fairness issues. What it would surely be a mistake to do is have some kind of national primary early on that keeps the candidates away from individual voters. Sure, all the voters I met today in Corning were greying and white (like me) but boy, were they involved; most had met candidates and several had still not made up their minds about whom to support.

Typical of them were Richard and Marilyn Shellenberg, who are going to have 20 people round for their Democratic caucus on 3 January: all of them are enthused and keen. Incidentally, I pick up a HUGE dislike of robotic campaigning, to the extent that you have to wonder whether some candidates are impersonating others to do them down.

America is at its strongest when it is viewed from the bottom up. Corning is full of decent people trying to do a serious job selecting the next president. The candidates they like best tend to be those who have taken the trouble to speak seriously to them, not recorded down a phone, but face to face, the old-fashioned way.

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