DNC makes the batting order of IA, NV, NH, SC official. NH not happy:
'The DNC did not give New Hampshire its primary, and it is not taking away,' New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch said. Secretary of State William Gardner has said he will decide next year whether to move the New Hampshire primary earlier.
Eager to avoid such a rebellion, Democrats also adopted sanctions to punish presidential candidates by penalizing who campaign in states that cut in line. Under that plan, candidates who venture into states that ignore party rules would not get any delegates from those contests.
But even DNC members were unsure how effective such a sanction would be, particularly if the states doing the leapfrogging are small and have few delegates to offer.
The delegates don't make the difference and everyone knows it, as noted in the New York Times: "Several Democrats said candidates might make the calculation that it is worth losing delegates — assuming New Hampshire defies the party and the party penalizes candidates — to get the attention that might come from an early New Hampshire victory."
If the media - old and new - decide New Hampshire is news, they will cover it and the candidates will be there. Maybe the blogosphere can play a role: pressing the candidates to boycott unsanctioned contests.
The other factor is the other party - the GOP has always had a much more hands off approach to the timing process. New Hampshire could leapfrog and the RNC could be OK with it, which means a legitimate GOP primary and a unsanctioned Democratic primary on the same day. Utter chaos, cats and dogs living together.
Kos refers us to an article at Political Cortex on the method behind the madness of GOP rhetorical excess
The Overton Window (is) a means of framing a discussion that -- not incidentally -- originated at a right wing think tank. The idea is that is you want to move a political position from point A to point B, the first thing you need to do is move the national discourse way out to point D. Maybe voice a little support for point E, or M. Keep it up long enough, and B looks so tame even your opponents are supporting it.
In the Overton Window of general political discourse, where are the Republicans? On a line where A starts with "Democrats are my worthy opponents" and B is "Democrats are incompetent" and C is "Democrats are fools," the right is somewhere around P or Q. Have you looked at the bestseller lists? Liberals are traitors. Liberals are "godless." Liberals deserve to die. They should all be lined up and shot.
What's the worst thing that left is saying about the right? The very worst? Republicans are corrupt. Republicans are incompetent. Republicans are hypocrites. Republicans are... well, that's it, really. When it comes to the battlefield of political discourse, we've surrendered the middle ground. We're fighting full time in Republican territory.
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