Just like it looked when things were settled in the Battle To Vote First, the player with the strongest hand says... he doesn't like Saturdays.
New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has unlimited power to set the New Hampshire primary whenever he wants, and over a 30 year career he's taken no prisoners in the battle to hold the first primary. As of last weekend, it looked like the calendar was settled: Iowa caucuses Saturday Jan. 5, New Hampshire primary Saturday Jan. 12, and the South Carolina Republican primary and Nevada Democratic caucuses Saturday Jan. 19.
But this week, the Manchester Union Leader reports, Gardner made it clear that he wants the primary on a Tuesday.
"I'm looking at Tuesday, unless there is some extraordinary circumstance," he said. "And we will all know if there is an extraordinary circumstance. That's where it's at, and that's it. There is no way I'd be able to figure out now all the different types of things that could develop to make it extraordinary. As far as I'm concerned, the primary is on a Tuesday."
New Hampshire law -- insert my standard rant here about one state's law trumping another's -- says the state has to go seven days before any other primary. This would place the Granite State on Jan. 8. Iowa law says we have to go eight days before any other nominating contest (repeat rant). That would place us on New Year's Eve, or more realistically push Iowa back before the holiday season and into, as Iowa hater Kos puts it, "straw poll irrelevance."
But if Iowa budges on the eight day thing, we can go first and in calendar 2008. So Saturday, Jan. 5 may be the day after all. The Legislature may have to meet for a day and fix the law. While they're at it, they can fix the problem I noted Saturday of voters changing parties and caucusing twice if the Democrats and Republicans pick different dates.
Not playing leapfrog are the two states the Democratic National Committee chose to join Iowa and New Hampshire in the early contests -- Nevada and South Carolina. Both are loyally sticking with the dates the DNC gave them, and both are getting stepped on.
Nevada was supposed to be the Hispanic and labor early state on Jan. 19, five days after Iowa. They've been leapfrogged by New Hampshire and joined on the date by the South Carolina GOP. Nevada is already slipping in prestige and importance, as seen this week by the John Edwards campaign's decision to pull staff out of Nevada and move them to Iowa.
Meanwhile, South Carolina Democratic chair Carol Fowler told the AP she has "no plans" to change their date, even though Florida has joined (and overshadowed) the South Carolina Dems on Jan. 29. (Remember, all this started when Florida's Republican-led legislature moved their state's primary from Feb. 5 to Jan. 29.) Fowler said she believed the SC Dems would lose all their convention delegates if they moved up.
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