The latest in primary calendar news

Three developments today in calendar news -- the dates have been shifting massively in the past few months, but at this point most states are trying to finally settle down their primary date now since we are only a few months from voting.

1. Iowa: The GOP date is now set. It is January 3rd, as per a decision by the Iowa Republican party. Meanwhile, the Iowa Democratic Party is hinting that it will not hold its caucus night on January 3rd. The Dems are said to be looking at either January 5th or even stay on January 14th... which could possibly put them after Nevada, and would lead them after New Hampshire for sure. Not to mention a day before Michigan. Two Iowa caucus nights... a political junkie's dream!


2. New Hampshire: As always the most obscure of the early states when it comes to setting its date. Gardner can basically choose whatever date he wants, and recent reports are strongly strongly suggesting he is very seriously considering December! The one thing we know is that he will not consider a date later than January 8th (since Michigan is set for January 15th). And because of the odds that Nevada will jump ahead of Michigan (at least the Republicans?), Garder might very well move to December to preserve the tradition that there is at least a week-long empty period after New Hampshire. Another consideration Gardner might take into account to move it to 2007 is Iowa's date. With GOP voting on the 3rd and Dems possibly on the 5th, New Hampshire would only have a few days in the spotlight -- and Iowa would be in the news for weeks. Naturally, though, NH in December would make all hell break loose.


3. South Carolina: The state's GOP has been pretty much set for a while to go on January 19th -- but the Democrats are still officially scheduled on the 29th, the original date of the South Carolina primary. Now, Democrats are hinting that they might not join the GOP after all and stay much later than the 19th. They are asking the DNC for an authorization to go on the 26th. Why move by three days? Because Florida is going on the 29th also, so SC Democrats want a bit of breathing room.


4. Nevada: Contrary to speculation that it would jump forward to regain its 3rd place in the order, Nevada Democrats announced yesterday they were not moving from January 19th. If Republicans follow, that means Nevada will be the fourth voting state -- after Michigan.
   

It is mostly useless at this point to speculate on who benefits and who is hurt by all this moves. Clearly it will all change by the time I finish posting. My one take is that both the SC move to the 26th and the NH move to December would hurt Clinton. former because Clinton is much stronger in Florida than in South Carolina, so she doesn't want FL to lose importance compared to SC. And NH's move simply because the state would have much less of an impact on the race -- and Clinton would not be able to correct an Iowa misstep with a New Hampshire win.

But the most interesting thing is that there could be TWO primary/caucus nights in BOTH South Carolina and Iowa. A lot of Election Days in January! And this would leave a full 3 weeks between Iowa and South Carolina -- more than anyone was expecting at this point. And to leave with with a sense of how volatile the situation is, here is the very handy chart prepared by The Politico: