Democratic Nomination Calendar Looking Messy

The Democratic nomination schedule is looking like it is going to be a mess. Some large states that are feeling left out might move up in the schedule creating a scrum in February of 2008.

From Political Wire...

"As many as four big states - California, Florida, Illinois and New Jersey - are likely to move up their 2008 presidential primaries to early next February, further upending an already unsettled nominating process and forcing candidates of both parties to rethink their campaign strategies," the New York Times reports.

"The changes, which seem all but certain to be enacted by state legislatures, mean that the presidential candidates face the prospect of going immediately from an ordered series of early contests in relatively small states in January to a single-day, coast-to-coast battlefield in February, encompassing some of the most expensive advertising markets in the nation. The changes would appear to benefit well-financed and already familiar candidates and diminish the prospects of those with less money and name recognition going into such a highly compressed series of contests early next year."

These states want to move up because they felt Iowa and New Hampshire had too much influence in 2004. I agree, but adding more states to the early portion of the calendar only makes the problem worse.

Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina are ideal states to have at the beginning of the schedule because to win a candidate must participate in retail politics. These smaller states allow candidates with limited funding a chance to get off the ground because it is cheaper to buy ads.

If these larger states do move up, it only benefits the well funded candidates. If the changes do take place, it is likely we will have Hillary Clinton as our nominee by Valentine's Day. What needs to be done is stretching the nomination process out, so the nominee isn't decided until April or May.