What is going to happen to the primary calendar?

April 24, 2007 – 8:54 am

As has been repeatedly noted, the primary calendar is strongly in flux. However, one of the most interesting questions is: what happens if New Hampshire moves up sharply, as I expect it will. Consider some facts:

  1. New Hampshire is committed (and empowered) to move up before, at least, Nevada, meaning that the latest it is held is probably Jan. 15th.
  2. Florida is committed by law to be one week after New Hampshire.
  3. The South Carolina GOP has committed to moving up to be the "First in the South" primary, which probably means before Florida, but after New Hampshire.
  4. The Michigan Dems have stated that if New Hampshire moves up too much, they will do something radical. And if they do, the Michigan GOP has committed to re-evaluating its date.

Perhaps the most important limiting factor here is that New Hampshire can call and hold elections very quickly. Once the ballots are printed, Bill Gardner can call an election almost whenever he wants. Therefore, New Hampshire will be technically capable of holding an election as early as early December. Would Florida be able to print ballots and hold on election on 4 weeks notice? Would the South Carolina GOP be able to do it on 3.5 weeks notice? What if the timing meant that candidates were campaigning over Christmas? (say NH holds it in mid-December, putting the FL and SC elections between Christmas and New Years) Would NV move up to hold caucuses the same day as SC? (they’ve never done caucuses like this before. Are they capable of doing that either legally or logistically?)

Those are merely logistical considerations. What happens when NV becomes irrelevant because it is competing for candidates time with SC and FL, both of which will have more delegates. Candidates will fly from NH to SC and FL.

Finally, what happens if people believe that we are approaching a brokered convention and every delegate will count?

I think that it is fair to say that the current calendar really is more a set of negotiating positions.

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NH bill may force moving up

March 28, 2007 – 10:25 pm

One of the little known and little understood dramas of this presidential race is the date of the New Hampshire primary. Earlier this week James Pindell of the Boston Globe’s Primary Source wrote:

“Like we have before we are going to honor the Iowa law,” said New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to reporters before a dinner honoring those involved in the New Hampshire Primary. “I hope [Iowa] will honor ours as well.”

New Hampshire law requires that its primary be at least a week before any similar election. The Iowa caucuses, in which voters express their candidate preferences to neighbors in living-room settings, have not been considered similar enough to justify moving the date of the New Hampshire primary.

But this year, the Democratic National Committee has voted to put a second caucus, in Nevada, between New Hampshire and Iowa. Since the structure of the Nevada caucuses is unknown, Gardner has reserved judgment on whether to move the primary date ahead of Nevada — even if being a week ahead of Nevada meant jumping ahead of Iowa as well.

However, according to the AP, today, a bill passed the New Hampshire House that clarifies that Nevada would be a "similar election":

Now Gardner must decide whether the Nevada caucuses constitute a "similar election" under state law. In the past he has had the implicit authority to do that, but Rep. Jim Splaine, a Portsmouth Democrat, wanted to make that explicit for Gardner and future secretaries of state.

House Bill 272 passed as part of the House’s consent calendar Tuesday.

Splaine has said he worries that other states or political parties disputing the primary date could sue over the secretary of state’s interpretation of a "similar election."

The article points out just how crazy this could get:

Gardner has not told anyone what he plans to do, but he is widely expected to leapfrog ahead of Nevada and Iowa. Once he knows who will be on the ballot, he can announce the date as little as three weeks ahead of the primary. The bill also makes the candidate filing period more flexible, so he can move it earlier than in the past.\

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More on primary dates

March 27, 2007 – 1:44 pm

Regular readers will know that one of my favorite topics is the primary calendar. Fascinating things are afoot.

First, on Straight Talk Express, an experienced party hack told me that smart New Hampshire money is now on a December primary. As I have discussed before, New Hampshire and Bill Gardner are committed to preserving New Hampshire’s first in the nation primary. And they are fully prepared to interpret a Nevada caucus as in contradiction with that.

Second, in today’s Politico, the South Carolina state chair used similar language to protect their position:

“We will change our date as often as we have to to remain the first-in-the-South primary,” vowed state Republican Party chairman Katon Dawson.

“We have a proud eight-year history when it comes to selecting our nominee,” Dawson said. “We’re determined to protect it,” even if that means pushing the primary up to October.

Note that in South Carolina, scheduling and running the primary is a party perogative.

And third, in today’s Hill, there’s an article about the RNC’s credentials rules. The meat of the issue is:

The rules, which are supposed to be automatic, require that states lose either half or 90 percent of their delegates, including their three RNC representatives, if they do not hew to the RNC primary schedule. If a state waits especially long before declaring its primary date, a small state like New Hampshire could be left with fewer than five delegates.

The article goes on to note that the politics of this are such that delegations will likely be seated anyways because states moving up gives them power to demand promises from candidates:

“Every candidate will be asked: New Hampshire runs to the risk of a penalty because of when its primary is — will you pledge that if you’re the nominee, you will work to see that the entire New Hampshire delegation is seated?” said a New Hampshire Republican source. “My guess is they’re all going to say yes to that.”

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More crazy calendar stuff: WA and NV

March 22, 2007 – 5:16 pm

Hotline points out that the GOP Nevada caucus might move into the window.

At the same time, both parties in Washington are turning their primaries into beauty contests and selecting delegates in caucuses.

Expect more states to follow this pattern. If Feb 5th does not determine the nominations, then caucuses could determine the nominee. On the other hand, if the nominee is determined, these caucuses could turn into a fight over rules, platform, or something else. This is especially likely if the base does not trust the nominee.

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Florida moving up primary into the window

March 22, 2007 – 2:10 pm

This is quite interesting… Apparently, the Florida state legislature is moving up the primary, again, to January 29th.

This would be the same day as South Carolina, I believe. I see several implications:

  1. I believe that the Democrats will penalize Florida for this by either stripping their delegates or stripping a large number of them. Perhaps one of my Dem readers can check on this?
  2. I cannot imagine that this is not at the wishes of Mitt Romney’s campaign. Do they think that this will help them? The idea here is, almost certainly, to get momentum out of Florida for Tsunami Tuesday on Feb 5th. Again, Zell Miller did something similar with Georgia to help Bill Clinton in 1992.

Update: More on party consequences:

But there are potential obstacles to Florida’s primary power play.

Aside from a few exceptions such as Iowa and New Hampshire, states that hold primaries to select delegates before Feb. 5 lose half their allotment of delegates to the national nominating convention. And Democratic Party rules say candidates can be penalized for campaigning in a state that picks its delegates before Feb. 5 — by being forced to forfeit the delegates won in that state.

"States can move wherever they want, but there are automatic sanctions," Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda said. "We will enforce the rules."

The GOP had a similar response.

"It’s up to the state of Florida to determine when it will hold its primary. However, all states will be penalized delegates if they decide to hold their primary outside of the window designated by the RNC," said Amber Wilkerson of the Republican National Committee.

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NH may move up its primary…

March 6, 2007 – 6:34 am

I have argued for a long time that New Hampshire may move its primary up a lot. Seems that I may have been right:

In 2008, he is widely expected to leapfrog six days ahead of Iowa, which would be Jan. 8, but no one knows for sure.

The Iowa and New Hampshire governors can’t do much about this….

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Late primaries going to get canceled?

March 5, 2007 – 8:23 pm

Apparently Washington is considering canceling its primary:

Some state lawmakers are thinking about canceling next year’s presidential primary in Washington to save the $10 million cost of the election.

…

The chairman of the House state government committee, Sam Hunt of Olympia, says lawmakers should consider canceling the primary if it’s going to be nothing more than a "beauty contest."

Nice principle. Don’t let the people vote. It’s too expensive. So how would they select delegates? Parties decide:

A similar situation exists today. Democrats will choose their delegates in community caucus meetings. Republicans might use the primary to select some delegates, but they haven’t decided how many.

Now this is all premised on the idea that everything will be decided on February 5th. But let’s run  this out. What if it is not decided on Feburary 5th? What if the delegate count is close on February 6th? Then all these caucuses (MO, CO, NV on the 7th, WA, etc.) matter a whole lot.

Just a theory.

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Nevada GOP settles on a date

March 5, 2007 – 1:15 pm

Feb. 7. That’s kind of weird.

But the logic is sound. If February 5th does not end the nomination battle, Nevada gets the first bite at the apple.

In the end, I think that Nevada is very good for both Mitt Romney and John McCain. It has both a large Mormon and large military population. Although, I wonder if the military voters will have the time to go to a caucus. On the other hand,I hear from my NV friends that Jim Gibbons is a McCain supporter, as was his campaign manager and perhaps the leading NV operative, Sid Rogich.

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Alabama moving to same day as South Carolina

February 13, 2007 – 9:40 am

This is interesting. Alabama will be moving up to February 2nd. For Republicans, it joins South Carolina on that day, although, the article notes that South Carolina may move up. This move up is on the heels of a previous one last year. But calendar compaction is forcing the state to move up.

Legislation last year moved Alabama’s primary to Feb. 5 and got presidential candidates to visit the state after years of ignoring it. With other states joining the Feb. 5 crowd, they decided to move it to an even earlier date so Alabama would "be a player no matter what," said House Minority Leader Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, who is also chairman of the Alabama Republican Party.

That may be optimistic thinking considering how many bigger states are looking at early February for their primaries.

"When one state moves, another state moves. There is no way Alabama can guarantee itself a critical vote," said Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Southern Politics, Media, and Public Life at the University of North Carolina.

These are both states that John McCain has an organizational edge in. I don’t understand who the edge will go to on the Democratic side. For this to succeed, it has to be pushed on a bipartisan basis.

In thinking about the impact of this, it is worth remembering that in 1992, Zell Miller moved up Georgia to help a certain Bill Clinton. Clinton won Georgia a week before "Super Tuesday" and used that momentum to clean up the next week. With a strong likelihood that the nomination will be determined on February 5th, the winner on February 2nd will be important.

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New York moving up?

February 12, 2007 – 9:24 am

So says the New York Post. Wow. That’s a bunch of Rudy Giuliani delegates, right? This just raises the bar. Competing in New York is incredibly expensive. Can someone really pop from Iowa and be able to raise enough money to compete in California, Florida, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey?

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