e usually stop people who cut in line by tapping them on the shoulder and giving them the thumb backwards. It's time to give the thumb to New Hampshire, Iowa, and Delaware and give the first presidential primaries to the states that truly deserve them.
The latest rudeness was sparked when Delaware set its presidential primary for Feb. 8, 2000. This made New Hampshire set a date of Feb. 1 for its first-in-the-nation primary. This irked Iowa, which had set Jan. 31 for its first-in-the-nation caucuses. Iowa wanted Delaware to go back to Feb. 15 and New Hampshire to Feb. 8. Getting no such cooperation, it appeared this week that Iowa would instead move its caucuses up to Jan. 24.
The confusion has become a national concern. The Republican National Committee is asking its members whether New Hampshire and Iowa should have the first caucuses and primary.
This makes New Hampshire nervous. New Hampshire Republican Party chairman Steve Duprey and two RNC members from New Hampshire, Ruth Griffin and Tom Rath, wrote a letter to the committee, saying, ''We understand that the first primary is an enormous privilege, but we believe we have earned it over the last 50 years with voter turnouts in excess of 75 percent.''
Duprey, Griffin, and Rath were right about the primary being an enormous privilege. But if voter turnout, as they suggest, is the key for that privilege, New Hampshire has not earned it.
I have thought for several years that the nation's first presidential primaries should go to the states that have the highest voter turnout in the previous presidential election. In that regard, Delaware is not even close. Its 49.5 percent turnout of its voting age population in 1996 ranked 28th.
New Hampshire and Iowa had respective turnouts of 58 and 57.7 percent. But that was good for only eighth and ninth place. The states that should get the first primaries are Maine, Minnesota, and Montana. The three states, respectively, sent 64.5, 64.3 and 62.9 percent of their voting age population to the polls in 1996.
A discerning eye would see one very positive thing and some obvious flaws in reshuffling the primaries this way. With Maine being at the top of the list, it is evident that a state's wealth is not necessarily a factor. Maine's personal income per capita ranks only 38th of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Louisiana, which was in 12th place for presidential turnout at 56.9 percent, is 41st in personal income per capita.
The flaws begin with the fact that all of the top 10 states in presidential election turnout in 1996 are between 91.5 and 98.8 percent white. That is hardly reflective of a nation that is 76 percent white, 12 percent black, 9 percent Latino, 3 percent Asian and 1 percent American Indian.
If the first 10 primaries went merely to the top 10 cities with the best turnout, none of the top 10 largest cities, the cities with some of the most pressing urban problems, such as public schools, would be stumped by candidates. Such a system would also work against which have the highest percentages of nonvoting children in the population and highest percentages elderly. Of the 10 top voting states, only South Dakota is in the top 10 of both underage population and senior citizens.
So, as the nation edges closer to rewriting the order of the primaries, here is what I would do. I would give Week 1 to the three states with the best turnout from the previous election. This year, that would be Maine, Minnesota, and Montana.
Then I would wait three weeks as the candidates stump the three states out of the 10 most populous that had the best previous turnout among them. This year, that would have been, New Jersey, Michigan, and Ohio. New Jersey happens to be one of the states that most reflect the color of the nation.
After that, I would redo the cycle, giving the next set of primaries to South Dakota, Wyoming, and Vermont. Then it would be back to the most populous states with the next best voting records, which, based on 1996, would be Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The next cycle would be Idaho, New Hampshire, and Iowa. Then New York, California, and Georgia.
This way, the nation's primaries would send candidates to most corners of the nation, to most of its people and address a wider variety of issues. It is not perfect, and it certainly does not address the issue of big money, but it would be much better than we have now, especially with 35 me-first states now holding their primaries and caucuses between Feb. 1 and March 14.
In New Hampshire, Duprey said, ''We've gotten used to this primary and think of it as our right." In their childishness, New Hampshire, Iowa, and Delaware remind us that none of them have a right to cut in line. The first primaries should go to the people who really belong at the front of the queue.
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist.
