I really liked John Dickerson's idea of the rotating regional primary system so everyone gets the "we're first!" euphoria that Iowa and New Hampshire covet so much. It would be a nice compromise between the appeal of a national primary and the "getting to know the candidates" value that David Plotz articulates.

But ultimately I doubt it would work because currently primary dates are set by the state governments and I highly doubt that they would agree to pass a bill every couple of years to redo their primary dates to fit a national schedule. On top of that any of those bills could get sunk by legislative mischief or politics (Notice Texas didn't become one of the Feb 5th states like they planned?). And there would be incentive to see some states try and switch to another regional group. It starts small with a state like Maryland trying to get from teh southeast regional to the Northeast regional since Maryland saying it has more in common with Delaware its neighbor than Mississippi. And down the road you see California trying to buddy up with New York since California's political nature has more in common with New York than Arizona. And then we are back to where we are now.

However I guess if the primary system was nationalized it might work, but then claims of State's rights would flood the debate. I guess ultimately it will be in that "what if" category like a "Prime Minister's Questions" or "Votes of no confidence" we sometimes envy from a parliamentary system.

Overall a great discussion though.