As far as the "party of old white men", that is a lie the other side told often enough people believed it.  The truth is one of our candidates was a young woman, Michele Bachmann; one of our candidates was a black man, Herman Cain, and who in the know, would ever characterize Ron Paul as an "old white man".  That is the way of the left: divide people, race bait and run a mental quota on what race or gender a person is in any given field.

An earlier primary would put us on a more even field with the democrats because thy usually have just one candidate and start running for president instead of primary winner.  This would give our candidate enough time for the public to know the issues.