The chaos of the Presidential nomination process continued this week with the South Carolina Republican Party’s decision to schedule its Presidential primary on January 19, 2008. Remember, the General Election is November 4, 2008, almost ten months later. South Carolina insists that its primary be the first in the South.
Anticipating the game of Presidential nomination one upmanship, Iowa and New Hampshire (the traditional one-two punch of Presidential politics) have state laws that require that they remain first and second, regardless of the date. Iowa’s election law requires that its Presidential nominating caucuses be held at least eight days before any other state votes. New Hampshire’s election law requires that its state primary be held at least one week before any other primary. The math is simple – take whatever date some other state picks and subtract at least fifteen days.
The current bidding for the third spot is between Florida and South Carolina. Before South Carolina’s recent move, Florida had moved its primary date to January 29, 2008, just ahead of the mega primary on February 5, 2008. Georgia, along with approximately twenty other states, all hold their presidential preference primaries on February 5. (Michigan and Nevada remain in the mix for the third slot behind Iowa and New Hampshire, but seem to have lost their appetite for more bidding. No one seems to care about the District of Columbia’s early primary date.)
In the scheme of things, the number of delegates at issue is not really significant. In order to win the Democratic nomination, a candidate must receive 2181 delegate votes at the Democratic National Convention which begins August 25, 2008 in Denver, Colorado. For the Republican nomination, the number is 1259 delegate votes at the Republican National Convention which begins September 1, 2008 in Minneapolis – St. Paul, Minnesota.
Measure against these numbers; Iowa has but a mere forty-one Republican delegates and fifty-six Democratic delegates. New Hampshire has only twenty-four Republican delegates and thirty Democratic delegates. In total, Iowa and New Hampshire, combined, have less than five percent (5%) of the delegates needed to nominate a candidate for President. Yet, every one concedes that doing well in both of these states is a necessary step toward winning the nomination of either national political party.
But, this is not the end of the story. Not even the most seasoned political observers dare predict the impact of the over twenty primaries all scheduled for February 5, 2008 (especially since they include the delegate rich states of New York and California). In fact, just four of the states holding primaries on February 5, 2008 - New York, California, Georgia and Illinois - yield an impressive 1009 Democratic delegates and 416 Republican delegates. If just the delegates from the other southern states holding primaries on February 5, 2008 are added, the total delegates at stake as of February 5th easily exceed the number required for the nomination in both parties.
Basically, February 5th will undoubtedly answer any lingering questions about who the Democratic and Republican nominees will be. Of course, the $64,000 question is whether there will be any lingering doubts when February 5th rolls around.
Obviously, a sweep of both Iowa and New Hampshire would go a long way toward putting the nomination away early for a presumptive nominee. On the other hand, in the world of cable news and internet access (and American Idol), anything less just focuses the Democratic and Republican nomination contests on the leading candidates in each party.
Two or three person debates have much more meaning than the marginalizing formats to accommodate all the candidates that exist now. In this context, the first state to follow Iowa and New Hampshire could be the most important state in the selection process. Hence the race between Florida and South Carolina to be third. Or, it could just be another state on the way to Tsunami Tuesday – February 5, 2008 – the day Georgians vote.