This morning on Facebook, Zephyr Teachout put up a post that starts “Primaries are the bedrock of democracy.” I got to know Zephyr during the 2004 presidential later, she challenged Andrew Cuomo in a primary for the Democratic nomination for governor of New York. Her post included a link to an article about Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.

While there is great focus on Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in 2016, it is worth remembering that for the United States, “primaries are the bedrock of democracy”. So, I’m keeping an eye on the other candidates, particularly Martin O’Malley and Lincoln Chaffee.

I went to hear Martin O’Malley last month and give him a mixed review. I haven’t looked enough at Chaffee to have an opinion there.

Many of the comments on Zephyr’s Facebook post focused on issues like fracking and common core. These are not likely to be dominant for the broader population. Nor are they, for me at least, make or break issues. However, having a good debate about these issues on the campaign trail would be good for all of us.

I mentioned there, as well as I mentioned to the members of the press I ran into up in New Hampshire, that at this point in 2004, Dick Gephardt was the front runner and few people had heard of Howard Dean. We’ll see what happens this time around, but I think it is important to remember that we’re at the beginning of the primary process, not the end.