The confetti is thrown. The champagne is raised. The New Year has arrived. Time to vote?
The accelerated election schedule may not be that jarring, but it could be close. States pushing up the dates of their primaries in an effort to gain more influence could mean the contests to select a Republican challenger to President Obama would start a full 11 months before the general election.
Even though both political parties tried to avoid a repeat in 2012 of a similar scenario in 2008 by delaying early presidential primaries and caucuses, states are leapfrogging their dates, threatening to push the first Republican contests into the early part of next year.
The article speaks of possibly holding the primaries "a full 11 months before the general election."
ReplyDeleteBut the writer needs to consult a calendar -- 11 months before the 2012 general election would be the first week in December 2011. The article never speaks of a primary that early. The earliest it mentions that a primary is presently scheduled is 31 Jan, which is only a few days more than 9 months ahead of the general election. If some primaries move to the early part of January, as speculated in the article, that's only 10 months before the general election.