First Presidential Votes Might Be Cast in 2007

[TransitJohn]

First Presidential Votes Might Be Cast in 2007
Jackie Calmes reports on the 2008 presidental race.

CampaignThe first 2008 presidential votes may be moving into 2007 after all, making a race that has started earlier than ever even more intense.

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson will announce that he is moving its primary date ahead of Florida’s Jan. 29 vote, to reclaim his state party’s “first in the South” presidential-nominating banner. But he will do so in New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation primary. And he will be joined by New Hampshire’s longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who alone has the power to set that state’s date for both parties, now tentatively Jan. 22.

If both were to move their dates up, that likely would force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses as the first nominating contests of any kind — to consider moving its date from next Jan. 14 into pre-Christmas December.

A prominent South Carolina Republican who spoke with Dawson this week said that both South Carolina’s Republicans and New Hampshire would make a change. But another source suggested that only Dawson would announce a change, while New Hampshire’s Gardner would appear as a show of support for South Carolina Republicans and remain mum on his plans for now. One reason: The Democratic Party’s rules committee meets later this month, and all of this state maneuvering is in violation of both parties’ rules. Those rules have sought to prevent the front-loading of presidential nominating contests, but the threatened penalties — forfeiture of convention delegates — have proven weak.

This madness has got to fucking stop. Didn't candidates used to announce around Labor Day traditionally??? Now we're thinking of voting in December??? :wtf::wtf::wtf::wtf: