Do Longer Nomination Processes Truly Hurt Parties?

It seems that most Republicans have recently widely accepted (and been vigorously promoting) the theory that lengthy nomination processes somehow hurt parties and that Republicans are better-off somehow by choosing their Presidential nominee (and closing debate while mindlessly uniting behind him) as quickly as possible--despite the fact that most voters hardly pay any attention to elections until 72 hours before voting. Somehow, doing it fast has become more important that doing it right, as a worse nominee sooner is somehow deemed to be superior to a better nominee later.

If you know any such folks, then you may wish to recommend the following links to them, courtesy of Mike Ridgway:

* Results Are In? Democrats NOT Being Hurt by Longer Nomination Process
* How Soon Some Democrats Forget: Al Gore Was Not Helped by Easy Nomination in 2000
* Washington Post Outlook: Proportional Representation a Big Success in Democratic Nomination Process

I just shared two of these links with Republicans on MySpace, among whom this theory seems to have recently gained a tremendous amount of unquestioning support.