2012 Scheduling

by: Hopeful

Sun May 23, 2010 at 04:13:19 PM EDT

Over at fivethirtyeight.com, I learned the Democratic National Committee's Rules & Bylaws Committee is making news on the 2012 Presidential Primaries schedule -- as is the RNC on the Republican side:

Basically, the two parties seem to be on the cusp of achieving alignment on two calendar-related issues. First, both parties clearly want to push the so-called "pre-primary window" for the approved, early states to after February 1, instead of January 1. Second, because the RNC's ad hoc delegate selection committee has recommended designating Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina as the four states that would be allowed to conduct primaries/caucuses in the February, pre-primary window, the two parties could very well have the same four contests in the same four states on identical dates during February 2012.
...(The GOP is also likely to require proportional assignment of delegates for any state that holds its primary or caucus before April 2012, but I will wait to talk about the implications of that once the GOP's new rules are set in stone.)

There's no reason to imagine this matters for President Obama's re-nomination but the Republicans are a different story. You might remember that New Jersey Republicans used an early winner-take-all 2008 primary, intended to help Rudy Giuliani, that ultimately benefited John McCain. (McCain had already taken a commanding lead for the nomination in Florida's even earlier winner-take-all primary.) Under these new proposed rules, that won't be possible, and perhaps the state will be more competitive.

The schedule the two parties want to push through will conflict with many states' desires to go early, desires that have been codified here in New Jersey election law

19:2-1. Presidential primary elections for delegates and alternates to national conventions of political parties shall be held in each presidential year on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in February.

Will the current Democratic legislature* cooperate with the Republican National Committee to change our election law? It will be interesting to see. I also look forward to the spectacle of Governor Christie trying to maximize his influence using New Jersey's primary.

Would you move New Jersey back to March if the RNC and DNC asks us to? Would you just return to the regular June date?

*I don't see how it could wait until the next legislature in January 2012.

Hopeful :: 2012 Scheduling