Yet another monkey wrench has been thrown into the nomination calendar. The Atlantic's Marc Arbinder reports:
Michigan could hold a statewide primary on Jan 15, if a deal reached (Friday) morning by top Republicans and Democrats in the state passes muster with state legislators.
Michigan political sources say that Gov. Jennifer Granholm and Sen. Carl Levin are very close to a deal with House Speaker Andy Dillon (D) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R). It's not clear whether the state parties are on board, yet, but if the legislature decides to pass a bill changing the primary date, and then Gov. Granholm signs it, there's not much dissidents can do.
Levin has long been "the most vocal critic of allowing Iowa and New Hampshire to lead off every time," wrote USA Today in 2005. Levin's objections played a big role in the Democratic National Committee's commission that carefully carved the Iowa-Nevada-New Hampshire-South Carolina calendar that was supposed to govern the 2008 nomination.
"Different states with different interests have people who feel left out," Levin said. "Should we always have the same two states with a disproportionate impact?"
Levin wanted to move all the way up to Jan. 8, the likely New Hampshire date. "Levin apparently was determined to break the calendar," writes NBC's Chuck Todd, "rather than try and play within the loose set of rules that seemed to be developing between the early states."
"One possibility is that the DNC and virtually every other interest in the party gangs up on Michigan and pressures candidates not to compete there," writes Arbinder. "The Republican National Committee has some leverage, but not nearly enough." Since the 1968-72 era reforms that moved nominations from smoke-filled rooms to primaries and caucuses, the Democrats have been more concerned about process and schedule, while Republicans have deferred more to states.
Michigan's move makes a Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary even more likely. This makes Iowa's goal of being first AND in January AND in accordance with Iowa's state law that somehow trumps the state laws of 49 other states and insists that we go eight days before anyone else very, very difficult without the type of calendar reform not seen since Pope Gregory.
So what should Iowa do?
Chris Bowers at Open Left and Century of the Common Iowan argue for a pre-holiday, mid-December caucus. "No other state would jump behind us because of the holidays. New Hampshire could then go in early January and the holidays would prevent states from jumping ahead of them," writes Common Iowan. "Candidates would still compete here because they have already invested so much into the state and we keep our relationship intact with New Hampshire."
But at MyDD, Jerome Armstrong argues for early, early January. "Iowa has stated they will stay in 2008 already, so that pushes their date to just after the New Year," he writes. "There's no way they would be able to meet the '8 days prior' law if NH does stick to the 8th, which makes me wonder, why doesn't IA just go on the 7th? Or they go on the 5th or 4th -- either way they are going to have to accommodate."
And who does it help or hurt? "Assuming (mid-December) will lessen the influence of Iowa, and increase the importance of New Hampshire, this looks to be a major blow for John Edwards, and a boost for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama", writes Bowers.
In any case, if a pollster calls and begins the call with "If the Iowa caucuses were held tonight," you may want to head on down to your local precinct house just to make sure they aren't actually being held tonight.
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