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Michigan joins the race for 'me first' primary
State Senate wants to move voting up, stealing attention from Iowa, N.H.
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The primary election calendar is a lot like the weather: Everyone gripes about Iowa and New Hampshire going first, but no one does anything about it.
This year they are trying mightily.
States have been falling all over themselves to get some of the attention lavished on little Iowa and New Hampshire. Bigger states have long felt that these two largely rural, largely white states are not representative of the rest of the country. The intense scrambling has left the primary timetable up in the air.
The latest state to try to muscle its way up front is Michigan , where the State Senate could meet as early as Wednesday to start the process of moving its voting, probably to Jan. 15. Florida has already hop-scotched ahead and may be penalized for doing so. South Carolina Republicans leap-frogged ahead of Florida.
About 20 other states, including California, New York and Illinois , are set to vote on the same day, Feb. 5. (Arizona just joined them yesterday.) This “super duper” Primary Day could force candidates to make hard decisions about where to spend their time and advertising dollars in what could be a four-week sprint to the nomination.
The net effect of this free-for-all is that, as night follows day, Iowa and New Hampshire will still probably end up voting first. But the other states are not making it easy for them.
By pushing ahead, the other states are forcing the two early birds to go even earlier to keep their coveted status — possibly bumping New Hampshire to Jan. 8 and Iowa to New Year’s or even December, forcing them to compete with Santa for voter face time.
The matter is likely to boil over this weekend, at least for the Democrats, when the states meet with the rules committee of the Democratic National Committee in Washington. The party wants to rein in the scheduling anarchy and punish those violating party rules that bar all but a handful of states from voting before Feb. 5. Florida is the chief delinquent, and Michigan could be another.
Threats of punishment from the DNC
No one knows how the meeting will turn out, but officials say tensions are running high. The Democratic National Committee has threatened to punish noncompliant states by denying them delegates at the nominating convention and limiting the amount of time that candidates can spend in those states. But Florida and Michigan seem willing to challenge the party, thinking it unlikely that the party’s nominee, assuming that person is chosen before the convention, would go along with dissing those populous states.
Many analysts think a compressed calendar would favor the leaders in the polls, giving challengers less time to catch up. Polls in Michigan have Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton leading the Democrats and Rudolph W. Giuliani leading the Republicans.
But Bill Ballenger, editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nonpartisan newsletter, argues that moving Michigan up could give the challengers a chance to catch up after Iowa and New Hampshire and before the super primary on Feb. 5.
John Edwards , for example, could benefit from the support of organized labor in Michigan, home of his campaign manager, David E. Bonior , Mr. Ballenger said. And Mitt Romney , a Republican who grew up in Michigan and whose father was governor of the state, could find himself renewing old ties.
While Florida has set voting for Jan. 29, Michigan seems set on moving to Jan. 15.
“Michigan has been bellyaching for years, more vociferously than any other state, about Iowa and New Hampshire going first,” Mr. Ballenger said. “They’re saying, ‘We’ve had it, we’re going Jan. 15, we’re going to trump everyone,’ and that’s what they’re determined to do.”
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