Senator Lieberman is someone we watch closely. Not only is he a former vice presidential nominee of the Democrats who is one of the few senators to be elected as an independent, but he also has been a stalwart in the war on Islamic extremist terrorism. So when the junior senator from Connecticut joined yesterday with a former Republican presidential candidate, Senator Alexander of Tennessee, and a Democrat of Minnesota, Senator Klobuchar, to propose what they billed as a “tripartisan solution” to the presidential nominee selection process, it got our attention.

In a press release explaining the legislation, Mr. Lieberman said, “The guiding principle of our democracy is that every citizen has the opportunity to choose his or her political leaders. But the sad truth is this principle no longer bears a resemblance to the reality of an increasingly compressed and arbitrary presidential primary system.” He said, “The most powerful political figure in the world should be chosen in a fair, inclusive, and structured way that reflects the importance of the office.”

The senators are concerned that states are racing to move their primaries earlier and earlier. New York this year agreed to a similar move, widely considered an effort to help Senator Clinton and Mayor Giuliani. New York advanced its presidential primary to February 5 from March 2. February 5, 2008, is also a day on which 18 other states will cast presidential primary or caucus votes.

The senators plan to counter this trend to an early “national primary” by creating, instead, a region-by-region primary system where, on a rotating basis, states in the West, Midwest, South, and East take turns hosting the first batch of primaries and caucuses. As a press release from the senators describes it, “Beginning in 2012, primaries and caucuses would start on the first Tuesday in March, continuing on the first Tuesday in April, May, and June until each region has chosen candidates for the party conventions. The next presidential election year, a different region would have a chance to go first — rotating through all the regions every 16 years. Iowa and New Hampshire would not participate in the regional rotation, and would remain as the historical first caucus and primary in the nation.”

Our own feeling is that the Congress doesn’t have much right to interfere in how the political parties select their nominees. It’s a matter best left to the parties. As for the voters, while rotating among regions would make things marginally more equal, those not enrolled in a political party would even under that system be left out of choosing nominees in states, such as New York, with closed primaries. Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire would even under the new system have a lot more say, and more contact with the presidential candidates, than those elsewhere. If Messrs. Lieberman or Alexander or Ms. Klobuchar feel that the nomination processes of the parties are churning out under-qualified nominees, nothing is stopping them or anyone else from starting a new political party that chooses its nominees using a more deliberative process or from running as an independent, a strategy Mr. Lieberman himself used, as least in his senate career, to such famous advantage.