I just know that many hard-core New Hampshire Democrats are suffering conniptions after their national committee agreed to allow Nevada to hold a presidential caucus between Iowa's and New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation (a phrase that in the Granite State has become as irritatingly repetitive as "have a nice day") primary.

The national committee's action -- The GOP has not made any similar move -- makes sense for a party that is slowly trying to reconstruct itself into the sort of dominant presence it once was. Nevada has a relatively strong union vote and the state is about 23 percent Hispanic.

In other words, for a presidential hopeful to make some serious headway by the time he gets to New Hampshire's first-in-the ... oops, I've already said that ...primary, a candidate will have had to persuade Iowa farmers along with Nevada Hispanics and union members of his or her worth.

(New Hampshire, by the way, has a state law calling for its primary to always be first-in-the ... OK, enough of that. The law says the thing has to be first, period. And New Hampshire politicians are just rock-headed enough to say, "All right, we'll hold our primary not in early 2008 but in late 2007, if we have to, by golly." The Dems' national committee, on the other hand, has its own threat in return -- abide by our rules or we won't seat your delegation -- all of which means the Democrats will continue to be a fractious lot that will provide weeks of entertainment for those who take their politics seriously.)

Personally, I think the riot of primaries has done a terrible disservice to politicking as it used to be done.

The primaries have reduced the quadrennial national conventions to de-horned carnivals of meaningless bloviating and PR preening.

The conventions used to be where each party actually chose its presidential candidate and running mate. The primaries merely served up the likeliest wannabes and the conventions did the rest. The conventions, that is, actually meant something.

Last time that happened was no later than 1980, and maybe in 1976.

The conventional wisdom is that no one wants to go back to those days of party machines and smoke-filled rooms.

But think about it. Those smoke-filled rooms and big city machines produced candidates and presidents like Roosevelt, Dewey, Eisenhower, Kennedy, etc. Candidates and winners who were certainly no worse and maybe even a little, or a lot, better than some of the mediocrities since -- McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dole, etc.

Instead of a celebration, the conventions were a time for the top two or three candidates to duke it out in public, all at once, winner take all, and the final vote was a lot more dramatic and, I think, meaningful, than watching the Clintons and Gores try to dance to an old Fleetwood Mac song.

I recall my parents, who were longtime Adlai Stevenson fans, being won over by Jack Kennedy only during the convention that named him the Dems' candidate in 1960.

The point was that the winning candidate proved not only that he could win the votes of the people but that he could also get along with the party apparatus and truly be a national leader, not just an American Idol.

To often in the last, say, 40 years, a candidate has gone forth with a trail of grumbling in his wake, leaving behind state and local leaders who won't lift a finger to offer any real help. They show up for the banquets but their endorsements are worth not much more than a day-old pot of coffee.

Also important is not loading too much in the front end and allowing a candidate to lock up the nomination so early that the later primaries, such as Super Tuesday, become as meaningless as the conventions. As the Democrats try to rebuild, that's the last thing they need to do.

Have I mentioned the Democrats? Up to now, the primary/caucus rescheduling has been their baby. The Republicans have, for better or worse, avoided this issue. And why not? They have been successful in 12 presidential elections since 1972.

The Democrats are, in some ways, still failing to grasp the salient issue: They are failing to build the coalition they need.

And rejiggering the machinery isn't going to help.