Big States’ Plan for Earlier Primaries Scrambles '08 Race [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Big States’ Plan for Earlier Primaries Scrambles Race
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: January 25, 2007

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 — As many as four big states — California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey — are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates of both parties to rethink their campaign strategies, party officials said Wednesday.

The changes, which seem all but certain to be enacted by state legislatures, mean that the presidential candidates face the prospect of going immediately from an ordered series of early contests in relatively small states in January to a single-day, coast-to-coast battlefield in February, encompassing some of the most expensive advertising markets in the nation.

The changes would appear to benefit well-financed and already familiar candidates and diminish the prospects of those with less money and name recognition going into such a highly compressed series of contests early next year.

Associates of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York Democrat, and Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, said that should either of them stumble early on, the respective party primaries in California and New Jersey — two states that would seem particularly hospitable to them — could offer an expensive but welcome firewall....

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...several party analysts suggested that having such delegate-rich states at stake on Feb. 5 could persuade candidates who might otherwise step out after a defeat in Iowa or New Hampshire to press on in hopes of a dramatic recovery on the new Super Tuesday....

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/25/us/politics/25vote.html?hp&ex=1169787600&en=d7c7f5f0aa7675dd&ei=5094&partner=homepage