Dems talking 2012 calendar

Too. Damn. Early. That's. More. Like. It.

UPDATE 2 from Norm: "February 6, 2012 is the recommended date." From too. damn. early. to the early edge of reasonable.


Dems talking 2012 calendar:

Iowa would hold its caucuses on Jan. 12, Nevada on Jan. 16. New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary would be Jan. 19, with the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26.

All others would hold their primaries and caucuses after Feb. 2, 2012. Scofflaw states would see their influence within the party slashed by half.

UPDATE: Norm Sterzenbach of IDP responds VERY quickly: "This not the date. AP is wrong. Using old rules not proposed rules."

And that's now, a year and a half out. What happens when Michigan decides to prove its point (whatever that is besides Iowa Sucks) again? And how does this mesh with Republican plans to have the early states (at least it's the same four states) in February, not January?

And the 50 percent penalty didn't stop states from leapfrogging on the GOP side in 2008. Nor will it work on the Democratic side, not after the last-second cave-in to Florida and Michigan in 2008. You get no delegates... oh, wait, I guess you get all your delegates after all.

January 12 is a Thursday, like January 3, 2008 was. (That also puts New Hampshire on a Thursday, very unusual for any sort of American election.) February 6 is back to the traditional Monday. I thought that having the caucus on a weekend, like we did in 2010, was supposed to be a big part of the plan to stay first. Perhaps the Jewish Sabbath issue was a factor. Or maybe the extra-low attendance at the 2010 Saturday caucuses-though if we had a real nomination fight we could have them at 3 AM and people would show up.

My gut check is that none of this matters much, since the 2011-12 cycle is going to be Republican-driven anyway.

The other development:

The panel also prepared to discuss superdelegates, the party elders who can back candidates regardless of voters' wishes. In 2008, about a fifth of the delegates to the nominating convention in 2008 were superdelegates.

"It will reduce the overall percentage" of super delegates, said Alexis Herman...

Notice she said "overall percentage," not raw number. So, does that mean, instead of taking those plum superdelegate seats away from the pezzonovante, they increase the number of elected delegates above and beyond the current way too huge size? Apparently so:

...Add 81 unpledged add-on delegates to the base pledged delegate total and convert 614 alternates to pledged delegates – this would add about 700 delegates...

Like I've long said: the problem with getting rid of superdelegates entirely is that the congressman doesn't have to run against the 19 year old kid, because the congressman will win and look mean.