Weiner: Let Pennsylvania Vote First for President

Philly novelist makes case for pushing ahead of New Hampshire.

Philadelphia novelist Jennifer Weiner says Pennsylvania should move ahead of the New Hampshire primaries to cast the first votes in the presidential nominating contests every four years.

She writes today for a roundtable at the New York Times, each writer trying to answer the question: Which state should go first? Weiner’s answer: Her home state, of course.

“If you’re going to pick a state to have that all-important first primary, it should be one that looks like America, where the results might actually line up with the way America might vote,” she writes.

“Our state has everything – big cities that have become centers for technology and education. Dying small towns, ravaged by addiction and poverty. We’ve got immigrants and unemployment, we’ve got artists and writers, we’ve got hunters and Quakers, and politicians who range across the spectrum, from Joe Biden, born in Scranton, to Rick Santorum, who once said that legalizing same-sex marriage will make the world safe for ‘man on dog unions,” she said, before adding the coup de grace: “In terms of a scenic, historic backdrop, TV crews couldn’t hope for better.”

Read the whole thing at the New York Times.