Washington needs better way to pick president

Active Democrats are trudging to party caucuses on Saturday to pick delegates for either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. We wish them luck picking a favorite, though it seems a bit late to turn any national tide.

That said, Sanders’ insurgent campaign has stirred huge crowds, including an overflow audience Sunday at Seattle’s Key Arena in Seattle, and he may well finish ahead of Clinton in the Evergreen State. Clearly Sanders has been good for the Democratic Party effort to stir new voters’ interest in the race.

Though Clinton’s background has better prepared her as a national leader, Sanders has been tapping into economic angst — the sense of having been left behind economically — which Republican frontrunner Donald Trump also is exploiting to bring to bring working class voters to the GOP side.

The appearances by Clinton and Sanders in our state this week suggest that Washington retains some kind of influence in the ultimate selection of a party standard bearer in November.

But some national Democrats are already calling for Sanders and the party to coalesce behind Clinton, suggesting the game is over.

Meanwhile, the state Republican Party has opted to rely on a May 24 presidential primary for apportioning delegates in support of the party’s remaining candidates at the national convention in Cleveland.

By then, it’s not clear if it’ll just be Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, or if Ohio Gov. John Kasich will still be in the conversation.

All of this makes us wonder — what would we have seen if both parties had agreed to a primary closer to March 1, or even March 8 as Secretary of State Kim Wyman proposed?

It’s likely Washington voters would have played a more pivotal role in picking the eventual nominee for either party, just as blocs of states in the South and Midwest have done in setting the tone of the national conversation.

That is why we like Wyman’s proposal to create a regional super-primary early in 2020. If she could draw in a dozen Western states for a “Pac-12” vote, it would magnify candidates’ attention to our part of the country, much like this year’s Southeast primary did.

“If enough Western states went together in early March we’d get a lot more candidates here campaigning,’’ Wyman said this week.

That is a worthy goal. Of course, that would require states with disparate political styles to come together, and for our two state political parties to agree on a primary strategy.

Last year, Democrats refused to move the Washington primary date to March 8; it is set in statute for late May. Democrats said it would cause confusion because it was too near their March 26 caucuses, which they refused to abandon in favor of a primary.

Washington Republicans decided for the first time to use the primary to apportion all of their delegates for the convention’s first vote.

A primary is a better approach, draws in more people and is the way more states are going. An earlier date would also give that larger crowd of participants more choices.

What’s not to like?

— The Olympian