Alexis Herman, a former US secretary of labor, and Representative David Price, Democrat of North Carolina, will lead the commission that is charged with studying the election calendar and recommending any changes. The first meeting is scheduled for early next year, with regional hearings planned and a final report due by the end of 2005.
Officials in Iowa and New Hampshire vigorously oppose any changes that would infringe on their status. They argue that their voters are uniquely engaged in the primary process and give candidates a tough vetting, while a national nominating process would focus on large cities and neglect rural areas.
The commission is the result of pressure from two Michigan Democrats -- Senator Carl Levin and DNC committeewoman Debbie Dingell -- who contend that Iowa and New Hampshire lack the diversity to represent the country's interests and that no two states should have such influence on the presidential nomination.
Discouraged after two defeats in the presidential election and losses in high-profile Senate races, state party chairmen and other Democratic leaders who gathered here yesterday largely agreed that they failed to reach the hearts and minds of Americans. There was no shortage of advice on how to win them over.
Nancy Jane Woodside, vice chairwoman of the Utah Democratic Party, said Democrats have to change their habit of ''laundry listing" the country's problems and come up with solutions that can be easily explained.
Woodside noted that Senator John F. Kerry, the Democrats' presidential nominee, would tell people to visit his website to read about his plans, something she said only the intellectual elite will do.
''I'm sick of it," she said. ''Tell me what you are going to do. Democratic Party, what are you going to do? I don't want the laundry hung out any more."
That criticism came from an activist who has known Kerry since their days as antiwar activists. Woodside also said she wished Kerry would have campaigned a bit in her home state of Utah.
