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The Republicans
are debating -- again! -- tonight, but I believe that the
most important issue of this entire campaign may never be
discussed on stage. The Real Story is that the key to the
entire '08 nomination just might rest with whoever wins a
cut-throat game of primary leapfrog that is being played
right now.
In this game, the players are the state delegations and the
object is apparently to be the one with the earliest
possible primary election date. Florida made an early bid
for the title by moving their primaries to January 29th, but
then Wyoming responded by moving theirs to January 5th --my
tree isn't even down by then! Michigan then retaliated by
moving their primary up to January 15th, joining almost a
dozen other states that have already scheduled their
primaries to be earlier than February 5th.
Aside from the novelty factor of being first, there doesn't
seem to be a whole lot of solid rationale behind any of
this. For example, here's New Mexico governor Bill
Richardson recently said that Iowa's primary should be first
for, "reasons related to the Lord?" Huh? I mean I'm a pretty
Christian guy, but even I don't think that God actually
cares about when Iowa holds their primaries, especially
considering how busy He is planning the whole "return of his
son" thing. However, there are actually a few good reasons
why you should care about any of this:
First, early primaries probably hurt lesser known candidates
the most because it doesn't give them as much time to raise
money or get their names out there. In fact, people like
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton would probably never have
been the nominee if this schedule were in place.
Second, this whole debacle may actually end up helping
republicans when it comes to the general election, and
here's why: Democrats made a pledge over the weekend to
avoid campaigning in states, like Florida, that violated
party rules by moving up their primaries. (Good thing for
Florida they're politicians so they probably won't keep
their word.) But Republicans have gone the other way,
deciding in some cases to campaign even harder in those
states because they may end up being winner-take-all. It
doesn't take an election consultant to figure out that the
extra face time may help the Republicans win next November,
but no one seems to be talking about who is losing in all of
this: it's us, the voters.
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