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Maybe the best, most immediate way for America to get a handle on its dysfunctional primary system is for the national Republican and Democratic parties to collaborate on an organized process that would better engage more voters in a national debate on the presidency.

Woe unto those poor folks in Iowa and New Hampshire.

If you think you can’t go around the corner here without bumping into a presidential candidate, consider that people in Iowa have endured four times as many visits as people from the Palmetto State. New Hampshire residents have had almost three times as many encounters.

According to Campaign Tracker, a tool on the Washington Post’s Web site that marries maps with data on where candidates held events, candidates have appeared at 1,798 events in Iowa since the first of the year. In New Hampshire, they showed up at 940 events. South Carolina, by comparison, has been home to 369 campaign events – and that number doesn’t even include some fund-raisers and other meet-and-greets.

So yes, we’ve received a lot of attention here – attention that is sure to completely disappear after the state’s Jan. 29 Democratic primary. But at what cost? Complete disenchantment with the presidential primary system?

“I am sick of it,” one statewide political analyst grumbled. “I am hearing more and more people saying this thing is three times longer than it should be.”

Others say the candidates aren’t the problem, but the media are.

“It’s fatigue about hearing from CNN and Fox News and all of the other guys who tell you how much smarter they are than you,” said state Sen. Phil Leventis who was travelling this week in Iowa with U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, a Democratic presidential candidate from Connecticut. “The fatigue is from the media circus.”

Because of the hype around presidential politics these days, many are just starting to pay attention here – despite hundreds of visits from Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the rest of the pack.

One Charleston lawyer said he hadn’t watched debates or sought out any candidates yet because the whole thing was too daunting. With so many candidates and so many different positions on so many issues, what emerged, he said, was political noise.

A Columbia observer added lots of folks would pay more attention closer to the Jan. 19 GOP primary and the Democratic contest that followed.

“You’ve got mortgages to pay and kids to send to school. Showing up in January to participate in the primaries is the last thing now on people’s minds.”

So what could be done to make the primary process more relevant?

Political scientist Larry Sabato from the University of Virginia suggests a staggered lottery system of regional primaries over four months in his new book, “A More Perfect Constitution.” Such a system would allow candidates to concentrate efforts regionally and involve more of the nation in a less haphazard way.

Others bemoan the lack of a parliamentary-style election, which limits the active campaign season to four or six weeks. (In reality, many countries that use this system have American-style constant campaigning.)

Perhaps because of the media, perhaps because of states playing thegame of one-upsmanship to be earlier in the selection process so they’re not overlooked, what’s happened in the presidential primary selection process is pretty abysmal. The process is chaotic for candidates, who criss-cross the country daily to be at the right place at the right time. The process is confusing for voters who try to keep up or who just tune out.

Maybe the best, most immediate way for America to get a handle on its dysfunctional primary system is for the national Republican and Democratic parties to collaborate on an organized process that would better engage more voters in a national debate on the presidency. Otherwise, it’s probably only going to get worse. And the only people who will benefit are the dang pundits.