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Watching the presidential candidates zip around the early primary states,
看那些总统候选人在排位靠前的初选州忙前忙后，
it’s easy to feel...left out.
很容易让人觉得……（自己所在的州）被冷落了。
It makes you wonder:
你会忍不住好奇：
Why don't we all just have our Presidential primaries on the same day?
总统大选的初选为什么就不能在同一天举行呢？
One study estimated that voters in Iowa have five times the influence of voters who live in states with later primaries.
某研究的评估显示，爱荷华州的选民的影响力比初选排位靠后的其他州的选民的影响力高出了4倍。
Which doesn’t exactly square with the idea of “one person, one vote”.
这就不太符合“一人一票”的理念了。
A national primary day isn’t exactly a new idea.
全国统一的初选日并不是什么新点子。
It’s been proposed in Congress more than 100 times since 1911.
事实上，1911年就有议员在国会提出了这一建议，距今已经有100多年历史了。
But none of those bills have gone anywhere.
但建议统一初选日的法案一直没取得什么进展。
And one reason is that the national political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, they don’t like the idea.
原因之一是民主党和共和党这两个国家党不喜欢这个主意。
They worry that a 50-state campaign would basically just become a giant TV ad war,
他们担心50个州同时举行的话，初选就会变成一场浩浩荡荡的电视广告战，
where the candidate with the most money always has the advantage.
那样一来，财力最雄厚的候选人往往就会变得更具优势。
The national parties have helped protect Iowa and New Hampshire,
两个国家党一直都在保护爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州（在初选中的靠前地位），
in part because these are small states where candidates have to engage in the tradition of “retail politics”:
部分原因在于它们都是小州，候选人只能靠“零售政治”的传统，比如
shaking hands, kissing babies, and eating fried food with the locals.
与当地人握手，亲吻他们的小孩，吃油炸食品拉选票。
Iowa and New Hampshire also fight to protect their own calendar positions,
两个州也很努力地在捍卫它们的靠前地位，
which originally came about more or less by historical accident.
尽管这一地位或多或少都是碰巧撞上的。
"They have resorted to blackmail, there's no doubt about it.
“他们试过勒索，这点是毋庸置疑的。
From time to time, when they've been challenged,
当他们的地位受到挑战时，
what they've let it be known to the presidential candidates,
它们时不时地会设法告诉那些总统候选人，
'you better not go mount a campaign in one of those states trying to jump before us.'"
‘你最好别去那些试图挤到我们前面的州拉票。’”
Back in 1996, Louisiana tried to jump the line and hold its caucus first.
1996年的时候，路易斯安那州就企图插队，率先召开党基层会议投票。
But Iowa politicians told candidates if they campaigned in Louisiana...they’d be sorry.
爱荷华州搞政治的那些人就警告当时的候选人，他们要是敢去路易斯安那州参加竞选……就等着后悔吧。
The candidates obliged, and the pundits and press deemed the Louisiana contest meaningless.
那些候选人就卖了爱荷华州一个人情，专家和媒体也纷纷表示（候选人）没必要到路易斯安那州竞选。
Iowa and New Hampshire fight tooth and nail to keep their first and second status.
为了保住第一第二的位置，爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州可以说是拼尽了全力。
And the national parties have no interest in challenging them.
民主党和共和党也没兴趣挑战它们。
If other states try to leapfrog Iowa or New Hampshire,
如果其他州试图插到爱荷华州或新罕布什尔州前面，
both states have laws requiring them to schedule their contests even earlier.
两个州都有法律能把自己的初选时间排到更前面。
So instead, other states schedule their primaries as close to Iowa and New Hampshire as they can,
所以，其他州便转而把自己州的初选安排地尽量靠近爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州的初选，
a process called "frontloading", which is how we get this schedule where the contests after "Super Tuesday" don’t really matter much
这一操作也叫“前置”，正因为如此，我们才有了现在的初选时间表，那些排在“超级星期二”以后的那些初选基本就没什么存在感了，
and where most people, rationally, choose to stay home when their state’s primary rolls around.
所以，那些州的大多数人才会在他们州初选到来之际选择呆在家里（不去投票），不过，倒也无可厚非。
