Utah and New Mexico will pursue a Presidential Preference Primary on February 5th, 2008. Arizona already holds their primary on that day. Other states in the Intermountain West are actively discussing joining the coalition.
Utah State Democratic Party Chair Wayne Holland, and Republican Party Chair Joe Cannon will now take the initiative to their respective party central committees.
There has been some good analysis of this elsewhere that I will deal with in a second, but I first want to offer my own thoughts:1. My goodness, that’s early. In 2004, the New Hampshire primary was held on January 27, which would put this the next week. This would put the West front-and-center in the Democratic primary process, which of course, I think is great.
2. This is not yet a binding reality. The article goes on to note that it’s up to the party, of course, when they will hold their primaries, and the legislatures themselves will have to approve the move. Here’s why I think it’ll happen: first of all, it would be massively weird for a state to hold a primary and then for the party not to bind the results on their delegates. It would result in a second primary in that state (or no primary), and it would make the party look stupid. This is basically a dare by Govs. Richardson and Huntsman.
3. What effect would this have on my long-foretold Colorado primary? I am not sure. Situating a primary this early might fulfill the requirement of a Western state in the new primary calendar, meaning the DNC would then turn its attention to which Southern state to move up. Then again, we might end up with a situation where Colorado goes first along with New Hampshire and Iowa, then a week or two later, the rest of the West goes too, creating yet another mini-Super-primary day.
4. The other possibility, of course, is that Colorado could join this primary date, making it truly a Western bonanza. There is some analysis over at the WesternDems link above about other states that could move up and join this date too. I’m torn about this: frontloading the primary schedule isn’t always a good idea, because it can choose a nominee too fast before people have a chance to think. (Though I voted for the man and prayed daily for his victory, I don’t know if John Kerry would be the nominee right now had there been a little more time for Edwards to gain the big mo’.) Then again, choosing a Western nominee quickly is probably better than choosing a Northeastern nominee slowly…
5. Also at WesternDems, the theory is advanced that this may not help Richardson as much as I keep saying!
I wouldn’t jump to conclusions that a Western Primary would benefit him over other candidates.Super Tuesday (the Southern to our Western Primary) was supposed to help nominate a centrist yellow-dog Southern Dem. But during the first Super Tuesday in 1988 Al Gore was beat by Jesse Jackson. It worked as planned in 1992 though.
You make a fair point, WesternDems! However, we are still right. First of all, insights from 20 years ago–while valuable–are hardly a reliable predictor of what happens today. I’d also suggest that part of Jackson’s success was his status as the first truly viable black presidential candidate–a factor that may have influenced a lot of voters, quite fairly! Here, though, the argument works in favor of the Gov. Jackson picked up a lot of black southern Democrats; Richardson could pick up a lot of Hispanic southwestern Dems…At any rate, the implications of this are still not well-known. I maintain my belief that the more Western primaries are implemented, the better for Gov. Richardson; and you have to wonder if the Clinton/Edwards camps (both of which benefit much more from Southern early primaries) are going ballistic at the moment.
[...] is the situation, then.On February 5th, 2008, Utah and New Mexico will attempt to hold their primary, along with Arizona. This is the initiative of Govs. Richardson and Huntsman. Other states in the [...]