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After the usual jockeying for position, it looks like the Republican Presidential primary calendar is finally starting to take shape in ways that require still-undeclared candidates to get in or miss the train.
Last Friday, in an attempt to be the first large population state with a primary, Florida broke the Republican Party’s primary rules by moving up its primary date to January 31. This power play by Florida is expected to cause the four traditionally early states — Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina — to all move their primary dates even earlier to maintain their early-state influence.
Already South Carolina is the first of the four early states to respond to Florida’s date change. To keep its status as the “first in the South” primary, the South Carolina Republican party has decided to move its primary date to January 21st. Under national party rules, that move could potentially cost South Carolina half its delegates at the Republican convention, but that is a risk the state party appears willing to take to keep its early position.
Both Iowa and New Hampshire have spent years jealously guarding their status as the first caucus and first primary in the country, so there is no doubt both states will respond to South Carolina’s recent move by selecting dates before January 21st. Both states will likely choose dates in the beginning of January, unless, of course, some other state tries to jump ahead of the pack, causing all of the states to move to even earlier dates.
The most important political implication to this moving up of the primary calendar is that it gives undeclared potential Republican candidates very little time to establish a campaign before the voting starts. With the first contest likely now just three months away, potential candidates like Chris Christie or Sarah Palin are going to need to decide extremely soon if they are running.
16 Comments
I just don’t understand the fuss. In Washington State, we have had presidential primaries since 1992. Half of those primaries were cancelled by the legislature as being pointless, and the parties have always ignored the primaries and selected delegates based on caucuses. They are an expensive, pointless beauty contest held to stroke the party’s… er… egos.
What am I missing?
Who benefits at the GOP convention if Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina lose half their delegates?
A GOP candidate could win these states but with half the delegates lost those wins won’t count much.
Tons of reporters and Presidential Candidates spending money in your local economy and bribing local party members for support.
This forces Sarah and Chris to choose now and it forces them into a race with less time for debates that could make them look bad or the time for the Press to research them.
Notice Trump was the original Mitt slayer, then Michelle, then Perry it seems the GOP powers that be might not like Mitt at all but they can’t find a person better than him to run so they quickly tank the challengers they themselves raise.
Romney may win NH and NV, not-Romney will win IA and SC. The tie-breaker will be FL. The winner of FL will have all the momentum going into February.
It’s not about the delegate count, it’s about early momentum, publicity, status as the front-runner, and fundraising. It’s also about forcing out the minor candidates. If the not-Romney vote can focus on a single candidate, s/he will enjoy around a 3:1 advantage over Romney. The sooner that happens, the worse for Romney.
OTOH, if Romney can remain at 25% with everyone else grasping for a share of the not-Romney pie, he can rack up delegates until he is the last one standing.
(At the risk of being a PITA, calendar ends in a-r. Please remove this comment when corrected.)
Well put and on the nose dave.
Maybe they meant “Marie Calender”????
He spells “Jon” wrong too. :-)
if obama wins the next election expect this trend to continue with primaries for the gop held before reenauguration
President Obama is already whining and hedging his bets in an interview with George Stephanopoulos:
Doesn’t sound like he expects to win in 2012.
since the economic problems were lengthened and caused by obama’s obsurd top down “economic recovery” he is correct, it will put a drag on his chances, he did it to himself
If I didn’t know he’s not considering running I might think that drag would be Giuliani?
We can’t give up ever. Obama, the elite, etc. have not even acknowledged that the protest exists.
I have to agree…an incumbent president with THIS economy and a disenfranchised “base” is posilutely an underdog. In fact, it might TAKE “Underdog”, on his side, to get him another term. Way too many of my friends have said they will “sit this election out” rahter than vote repubtilian or for Obama again.
That ain’t good. Here in Texas, those same people say they would only vote for Obama IF Perry is the GOP nominee.
Texas will go republican and it does not matter if people sit it out. I realize my vote is worthless here. It is a wholly owned tea party state with a republican super majority. Soon the whole country will be like Texas with republicans in control of everything.
In Washington, the Democrats have NEVER used the primaries to select delegates: all delegates are selected by the caucuses. The Republicans have selected only 1/3rd of their delegates based on the primary. Remember, no state law can impose its rules on a national organization.
So why can’t the parties just ignore the primary results in other states, and opt to hold caucuses at the state parties’ expense?