There is something to be said for the current system of having the early contests one at a time, rather than making the first contest a Super Tuesday style affair with multiple states voting on the same day. The current system allows candidates without significant fundraising to gain traction. The alternative, proposed by many of you, heavily favors those candidates who are able to fund raise the most, that is to say the "establishment."
That said, the first in the nation primary does need to be rotated; it's a disgrace that Iowa and New Hampshire have had such an out-sized role in deciding who will be president. Of course, not every state can be eligible to go first, as Muon pointed out in an earlier discussion, there are serious costs to going early. Below is his point and my response.
It's a costly proposal for states that only have one primary that combines state and congressional races with the presidential primary. Those states would have to double their spending on primaries. Rotating dates is undesirable for large states that set up an electoral calendar that functions the same every two years.
Like Muon said, many states would rather not go first for various reasons. With that in mind, I would do the following:
Ask all Secretary of States to volunteer their state to go first. Put those states which volunteer in a hat and pull out four names (1 by 1). Those 4 take the slots of IA, NH, SC, and NV. The rest of the volunteers go on Super Tuesday. The 4 states who went first last cycle are relegated to Super Tuesday to ensure some rotation.
This way candidates have to navigate different landscapes, new voters get to play an outsized role in primary elections, and the good people of Iowa and New Hampshire get a respite from 24/7 campaigning.
Additionally, I would stipulate that only states which were willing to shell out the money to hold primaries be eligible to go early or on Super Tuesday. Caucuses are abominations and those that can't be eliminated should be relegated to the very end of the calendar.
In this setup, after Super Tuesday the remaining contests would be those large states like California and New Jersey that prefer to hold their presidential primaries at the same time as their state primaries and local elections. That means the rest of the primary calendar is out of my control (as the imaginary head of the DNC/RNC). Not an ideal situation, but one I could live with.
