Updated: Today's the big day as the South Carolina GOP announces its primary date in New Hampshire.
Iowa Democratic Party quick to respond. These two sentences may be mutually exclusive:
The Iowa Caucuses are scheduled for January 14th, 2008 and we are moving forward with plans for that date.
Iowa will hold the first in the nation caucuses.
The Register is speculating on December dates. And Kos is quick with another anti-Iowa piece:
Iowa's obsession with being "first" means it is about to push itself into "straw poll" territory. Good. Edwards can't be happy about it, given it's the one early state in which he polls in the lead, but aside from the strategies of the individual candidates, I'm glad to see Iowa marginalize itself... Let all of us make this choice, not just two greedy states.
As an Iowan I hate to admit it, but with the Iowa winner getting nominated, the runner-up getting VP, and the guy in third yelling, we pretty much were the whole ball game in `04. Nothing that happened after Iowa mattered as much as what happened in Iowa.
Multiple sources note that Iowa law says we have to go eight days before anyone else -- but also says we have to be in the actual election year.
Chris Bowers at Open Left predicts the following calendar:
Friday, January 4th: Iowa caucuses Saturday, January 12th: New Hampshire primary Saturday, January 19th: Nevada Democratic caucus, South Carolina Republican primary Tuesday, January 29th: Florida primary, South Carolina Democratic primary Tuesday, February 5th: Super Tuesday
Kos has long been an anti-Iowa voice on the web. He's still mad that Iowa Democrats chickened out and backed the "electable" John Kerry over the netroots insurgent Howard Dean. He predicts December:
It would be even better if NH moved their contest up to December as well. Then we'd have contests in NH and Iowa that would be little more than glorified straw polls, with most of the rest of America getting a real say in their nominee for the first time in a long, long time.
O. Kay reports Gov. Culver saying Iowa goes first: "We will use every means necessary."
More good reads at MyDD and Wall Street Journal.
In all the net discussion no one's even mentioning Nevada, who the DNC had scheduled as #2 by themselves on Jan. 19.
Worth remembering: the driving force in all this is the Florida GOP, who leapfrogged from Feb. 5 to Jan. 29 and put Florida Democrats on the spot. The DNC rules committee meets later this month and, at that time, it will be determined if Florida Dems are punished for their jump outside of the calendar.
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