Around, Around It Goes in Missouri. Where It Stops Nobody Knows

FHQ just got done listening to a fascinating nearly-three hour floor debate in the Missouri Senate over the scheduling of the presidential primary in the Show Me state. And to say the rollercoaster ride to move the primary to March has been utterly crazy is, I think, understating the matter greatly. The debate this evening, though, served as a perfect microcosm of the whole process.

Given the option to move the primary to January, the chamber voted no.

Given the option to require the candidate appearing on the November general election ballot in Missouri be contingent upon having appeared on the primary ballot, the chamber voted no.

Given the option to move the presidential primary back to March, the chamber voted no.

Given the option to eliminate the primary altogether for 2012 only, the chamber voted no.

Again, this was a microcosm of the entire presidential primary date consideration in the Missouri General Assembly all year. Simply put, neither chamber could come to a consensus about what to do about the primary. Correction, neither chamber could come to a consensus that both chambers and the governor could agree to.

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Let's look at each of the above votes in turn because they deserve some more in-depth attention than the fact that each got rejected. FHQ will wait on the daily journal for the session today before attempting to describe all the amendments to amendments that were offered. It got confusing after a while. In fact, after all the the measures failed one of the proponents of an earlier primary had to ask what had been voted on, not realizing that the elimination of the primary amendment had failed. FHQ, then, will simply refer to these as votes and leave it at that.

As for the January primary move, Senator Brad Lager (R-12th) proposed the amendment under the logic that if the national party was going to look down on a February date, then move the Missouri primary up to show constituents that the legislature wanted the voters' voices heard. Senator Lager was acting in the way that many in the Florida primary discussion in the state legislature there were -- to make a statement on the current system. Nevermind that the bill in its amended form -- such that the primary would have been on January 3, 2012 -- would never have passed the House and/or the governor. Of course, Lager was willing to defer to the will of the body and did once the measure was rejected by a 10-22 vote.

The March primary move was then discussed but prior to it being voted on another amendment was added to force the Missouri Republican Party to switch back to the primary from the caucus. The means by which the Senate saw as necessary to accomplish this was by requiring that a party's presidential candidate on the general election ballot in Missouri have appeared on the presidential primary ballot as well. This was seen as a stick by the members pushing this amendment -- to get the state party to request a waiver from the, in this case, RNC to move to a compliant primary after the October 1 deadline. None of the members felt they had any level of assurance that the state party would make the switch. One thing that did come up was that the Missouri Republican Party only switched a caucus system to avoid the penalties associated with a non-compliant February primary. But none of the senators felt confident in the switch back. [FHQ note: Parties that readily accept the state-funded primary are rarely incentivized to switch to a caucus the party would have to pay for when a state-funded option is on the table.] The fallout on this move was too much for the state Senate. Some were worried that a legal battle with the federal government [not to mention the national party] if by some chance a candidate was not on the primary ballot and could not then appear on the general election ballot. That, too, was defeated but by a voice vote.

Then the March primary move amendment came up for further discussion and a vote. And again, like the other amendments, it was voted down, 12-20, mainly because no one in the chamber felt comfortable with relying on the state party to move back to a primary.

The final vote came on the overarching Senate substitute to the House committee substitute to HB 3. The House-passed bill would have moved the primary to March and raised the filing fee for presidential candidates. The Senate substitute would have eliminated the presidential primary for 2012 -- bringing it back for February 2016 -- and struck the filing fee increase as well. The discussion on this one was fairly limited compared to the other discussions, but the vote ended the same: a tied 16-16 vote which prevented passage.

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What does all of this mean? Well, aside from the reality that no consensus could ever be reached it means that Missouri will hold a meaningless presidential primary on February 7. That will cost the state up to an estimated $8 million and force the parties into holding caucuses. The Republicans had already selected a March 17 start date for its caucuses, but the Missouri Democratic Party has been awaiting a resolution to this impasse.

...one that is apparently not on the horizon.

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Iowa Republican Caucuses to January 3

Iowa Republican Party Chair Matt Strawn just tweeted:

It's official: The Iowa Caucuses will be Tuesday, January 3, 2012, at 7pm.

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There are several things that come out of this move.

• This obviously keeps the spotlight on the discussion between New Hampshire and Nevada. [Barbs are already being exchanged between media folks in the Granite and Silver states.] The Nevada Republican Party has set the date for caucuses for January 14 and that gives New Hampshire a small window of time in which to work. Saturday, January 7 -- one week before Nevada and just four days after the Iowa caucuses -- has already been nixed by New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner because of the conflict it has with the Jewish sabbath. That would leave Gardner with a couple of choices if the desire is to keep the primary in 2012. He could go back on his word on either the Saturday conflict or the fact that Nevada is "similar contest" or he could opt for a Friday, January 6 primary -- three days after Iowa. The alternative is a primary in December some time. 
• Romney is now feeling pressure from New Hampshire supporters to boycott Nevada. As Mark Halperin said, he needs both. That's a tough one.
• Nevada Republicans are also feeling the heat to move; something that could come up at the Nevada Republican Party State Central Committee meeting this weekend (October 22). Jon Ralston just tweeted that he didn't get a sense of "steely resolve" from NVGOP chairwoman, Amy Tarkanian regarding the current caucus date.
• This eliminates the Iowa holding out until New Hampshire decides scenario FHQ discussed this morning. But it also looks like from Chairman Strawn's statement that the Iowa Republican Party is standing alongside New Hampshire, taking the olive branch offered last week when Gardner went after Nevada because of its date and not Iowa for tentatively taking the first Tuesday in January.¹ That adds to the heat Nevada will face. 

At this point it is most likely that Nevada moves back this weekend and New Hampshire ultimately slides into the January 10 slot. As always, though, we shall see.

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¹ The full statement from Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn:

Iowa GOP Chair Strawn: First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses Set for January 3

by Matt Strawn on Monday, October 17, 2011 at 8:55pm

Des Moines – Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn tonight made the following statement after the Party’s State Central Committee approved a motion to hold Iowa’s First in the Nation Precinct Caucuses on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. (Iowa time).

“On behalf of over 600,000 Iowa Republicans, I’m excited to announce the first step Iowans will have to replace Barack Obama and his failed presidency will be next January 3 at our First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses,” said Strawn. “A January 3 date provides certainty to the voters, to our presidential candidates, and to the thousands of statewide volunteers who make the Caucus process a reflection of the very best of our representative democracy.”

Iowa’s precinct caucuses, which occur at over 1,700 precinct locations across the Hawkeye state, are best-known for the presidential preference poll that occurs along with traditional party organizing activities such as the election of precinct committeemen and platform discussions.

Strawn noted that the decision to hold the precinct caucuses

on January 3 mirrored the decision made by Iowa Republican and Democrat officials during the 2008 presidential cycle when Iowa held the First in the Nation Caucuses on January 3 and New Hampshire held the First in the Nation Primary on January 8, 2008.

Strawn noted this process is best served with Iowa and New Hampshire continuing in lead-off roles as the First in the Nation Caucus and First in the Nation Primary, respectively. He said, “At a time when more and more Americans feel disconnected from our national leaders, we need places like Iowa and New Hampshire that require those who seek to lead us, actually meet us, look us in the eye and listen to our hopes and concerns for our families and our Nation.”

Strawn also expressed solidarity with his counterparts in New Hampshire, “I will do everything in my power on the RNC to hold Florida accountable for creating this mess, but the culpability for creating a compressed January calendar does not end there. The actions of early state newcomer Nevada have also exacerbated this problem and unnecessarily crowded the January calendar. Time remains for Nevada to respect the process, honor tradition and rectify the problem in a way that will restore order to the nomination calendar.


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Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Boycotts and the Scheduling of the Last [First] Three Contests

When the Nevada Republican Party set the date for its 2012 presidential nominating caucuses earlier this month, the action seemingly end the state's involvement in the finalization of the 2012 presidential primary calendar. Theoretically, that should have ushered in a phase in which Iowa and New Hampshire negotiated for or simply just set the dates of their respective contests during the first ten or so days of January 2012. The process did move in the direction, but not without Nevada. No, New Hampshire threatened to slide its primary into December 2011, Iowa Republicans tentatively selected January 3 as the date of their caucuses, and New Hampshire again threatened a December primary and went after Nevada and not Iowa in the immediate aftermath.

That was a curious move in and of itself. Instead of simply scheduling the primary for January 3 and forcing Iowa Republicans to swallow the bitter pill of a December contest, New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner gave Iowa a pass by leaving a December New Hampshire primary on the table and going after Nevada instead. Now, as I mentioned last week, that signaled a couple of things. First, it was a move made with a nod toward Iowa and the notion that there just is not enough time at the beginning of the year -- before January 14 -- to fit both Iowa and New Hampshire contests in without violating the laws  on primary/caucus scheduling in both; in Iowa requiring eight days between its caucuses and the next contests and in New Hampshire requiring seven days between its primary and the next "similar" contest. the second thing it signaled was that Bill Gardner did not really want to hold the New Hampshire primary in December.

The first builds on the second. By not simply settling for the January 3 date -- the next earliest date that New Hampshire could have scheduled its primary without violating its seven day buffer law -- Gardner is attempting to bring Iowa into fold. In other words, if Nevada just moves back three days -- at least -- it allows Iowa and New Hampshire to fit contests into January that also abide by their state laws and uphold the traditional alignment of the calendar. Again, even if one of the first four states slips over into 2011, all four will be on trial in the time between 2012-2016. Their positions will be anyway.

It is in all four early states' best interests then to do whatever is necessary to keep this from spilling over into 2011. One will notice that there was nary a mention of Iowa in Secretary Gardner's statement last week. The attempt was to link Iowa and New Hampshire as a means of upholding the traditional alignment. The focus was on Nevada instead.

And that has reignited the standoff between New Hampshire and Nevada. It is a standoff that now includes candidate boycotts of Nevada -- something witnessed in the past. However, this time the challenge to New Hampshire is much stronger than in the past. The best way to tackle this is to look at the advantages for both.

Nevada:

• New Hampshire can deem Nevada "not similar" to circumvent the seven day buffer. [Yes, Nevada has a caucus and New Hampshire has a primary, but that is not the metric Gardner is using. The measure is one of attention and because Nevada, unlike 2008, has delegates at stake in the precinct caucuses, it is better able to woo candidates and gain media attention as well.]
• New Hampshire can schedule a non-Tuesday primary. [Gardner has already signalled that he is unwilling to go this route because of the conflict with the Jewish sabbath day. That does leave other days between January 3 and January 7 open though.]
• Most of the frontrunners are not boycotting Nevada. [Romney is playing with house money in New Hampshire and can afford to ignore the boycott if others do. That may affect him, but probably only at the margins. It will not cut into the consistently sizable leads the former Massachusetts governor has held in the polls of the Granite state. Perry, on the other hand, cannot boycott a state where he has garnered the endorsement of the Nevada governor.]
• The New Hampshire Republican Party chair called for Gardner to deem Nevada "not similar". [That didn't sit well with the Editorial Board at the Union-Leader. And from New Hampshire's perspective, the board is absolutely right.]

New Hampshire:

• New Hampshire can threaten and attempt to hold a December primary. [There are cracks in the December plan. There are potential conflicts with federal legislation to protect the voting rights of military personnel overseas, though those concerns have been overstated. There are also potential budgetary conflicts on the town and ward level with a December primary.]
• Iowa and tradition. [By not going at Iowa once Nevada had set its caucuses date, New Hampshire has kept up its alliance with the Hawkeye state. That has also kept alive the possibility that the two could work together to pressure Nevada to shift its date. This one is delicate because New Hampshire has to keep alive the threat of pushing the primary into 2011 and either leapfrog Iowa in the process or force the caucuses into 2011 as well if Iowa wishes to maintain its first in the nation status.  Gardner, then, is wielding a stick, but holding out the carrot of maintaining the "proper" order but with the requisite amount of time called for by law in both of the first two states. ...if only Iowa helps pressure Nevada. Now that may be a leap of faith, but New Hampshire is betting on the prospect of going in December forcing a reexamination of the early states' positions helping them to pressure the other early states. That is not working with Nevada. But will it with Iowa where there is more tradition behind holding the first contest? Perhaps.]

From the perspective of image, New Hampshire is losing this fight. Nevada seemingly has too many "yeah, buts" to throw at New Hampshire and Gardner to this point has simply balked at them while simultaneously threatening to move to December. Nevada, then, is mounting the best challenge to not New Hampshire's position per se, but to the infrastructure and means Secretary Gardner has utilized over the years to keep the Granite state up front. The candidate boycott is incomplete this time. There are cracks in the plan to hold a December primary. The only thing to save New Hampshire at this point from blowing up the current system -- at least the first four states' positions at the beginning of it -- is Iowa banding together with New Hampshire to avoid December contests to protect not only the status of the first two states, but the first four states as well.

Nevada has called that bluff. Will Iowa?

That is the question today as the Iowa Republican State Central Committee meets to presumably set the date of the caucuses for January 3. The day could go one of three ways:

1. Iowa selects January 3. That signals that they are confident that New Hampshire will work something out with Nevada and that they will help New Hampshire pressure Nevada to protect the calendar and the current system.
2. Iowa selects January 3. In this version, Iowa is telling New Hampshire that it is on its own; to go in December if it wants. Of course, that is something that Iowa would want to avoid because of what that may do to the national parties' ideas about which states should start the process.
3. Iowa holds off on setting a date until the New Hampshire/Nevada impasse is resolved. Such a move would do more than anything else to validate the New Hampshire threat to hold a December primary. That could, in turn, apply some pressure to Nevada to push back a few days to protect their position in future cycles. 

This calendar will have to resolve itself sooner rather than later. Today marks the opening of the period in which candidates can file to run in New Hampshire and with that we enter a point of no return to some extent. Nevada has one ace up its sleeve in all of this: time. The party can continue to make preparations for a January 14 caucus knowing that time is slipping away for New Hampshire and Iowa to jump into 2011 and have prepared properly for that. Pressure from Iowa and New Hampshire or not, that is a powerful tool. Again, Nevada has called New Hampshire's bluff. Will Iowa follow suit or will Iowa join New Hampshire in threatening their own future self interest and Nevada's by keeping the 2011 contests on the table?

We shall see.

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Utah GOP Gets Presidential Line on June 26 Primary Ballot

[Click to Enlarge]

Back in June the Utah Republican Party made the decision to allocate delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa using a primary in lieu of caucus meetings. The only problem at the time was that legally there was no place for the presidential primary on the June 26 primary ballot that typically only has contests for state and local offices. That changed over the past couple of weeks when the state legislature proposed and passed legislation in special session adding the presidential vote to the June primary. The bill -- SB 3004¹ -- was signed by Governor Gary Herbert on Thursday. That option will now be available to both parties in the future when funding is not appropriated by the legislature for the (still, by statute, scheduled in February) Western States Presidential Primary.

This seems like a ho-hum sort of move. It is.

...for 2012.

The move brings Utah in line with a great many other states that hold presidential primaries concurrently with primaries for state and local offices. What will make Utah different from those states in the future is that the state parties will have the ability -- should the legislature put it in the budget -- to opt into an earlier primary already codified into law. Assuming the economic ship has been righted to some extent by 2015 and that the national parties have done little to change the rules behind the formation of the presidential primary calendar, Utah could challenge the calendar by opting into the February primary. Now, for that scenario to work, you would probably have to assume that President Obama is reelected next year. Otherwise, Republican-controlled Utah is not going to be motivated to appropriate funds for what those in power view as an unnecessary contest. The tricky party, at least from the Utah perspective, is that Utah Democrats would have no options. The presidential line being included on the June primary ballot is contingent upon funds not being allocated for the separate February primary. Utah Democrats would have to choose between a more than likely non-compliant primary and holding caucuses as they are doing in 2012.

The states probably don't need any more help in the process of the presidential primary calendar date setting. They are doing just fine, thanks. But this either/or strategy is an interesting one that other states may consider in the future.  The contingency factor layered into the Utah law would have to be removed, but a law that allows parties to opt into a primary that is early/non-compliant in the process and a fallback option that piggybacked on a preexisting primary for state and local offices could be a workable plan in some states. I say some states because states with primaries for state and local office that fall after the second week in June would conflict with national party rules on the backend of the calendar. Those states with late August and early September primaries would have less flexibility than other states on this.

A tip of the cap to Tony Roza at The Green Papers for the news.

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¹ Text of SB 3004 can be found here.

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Housekeeping: Wyoming Democrats Avoid Passover Conflict with Alternate Caucus Date

[Click to Enlarge]

FHQ readers with a watchful eye may have read our post concerning the changed date for the Hawaii Democratic caucuses and had the same thought FHQ did. Hawaii Democrats had a conflict between their original April 7 caucuses date and the Passover/Easter holidays, does Wyoming, whose Democrats had also called for April 7 caucuses in their original delegate selection plan, have the same issue?

Yes.

Earlier in the week FHQ spoke with Kyle DeBeer, the interim executive director of the Wyoming Democratic Party, and he confirmed to us that the party had opted -- in an April 30, 2011 state central committee meeting -- to shift the date of the caucuses back a week on the calendar to April 14. That date continues to be about a month later than when the party began its delegate selection process in 2008. Wyoming Republicans will have precinct meetings and a straw poll between February 9-29 before some of the delegates are actually allocated in March 6-10 county convention meetings.

Below is the amended 2012 Wyoming Democratic Party Delegate Selection Plan:

2012 Wyoming Democratic Party Delegate Selection Plan

Find an update to the 2012 presidential primary calendar here.

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Gardner's Bluffing but It Has Nothing to Do with the MOVE Act

What is it with Friday and shallow hypotheses?

FHQ will not begrudge Hotline's Reid Wilson for pushing the conflict between the ever-earlier scheduling of presidential primaries and caucuses -- particularly New Hampshire and a December primary in this case -- and the mandates called for in the federal MOVE act. Here's Wilson:

That law, the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, significantly expanded a 1986 law known as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The MOVE Act requires state elections officials to send absentee ballots to qualified voters at least 45 days before an election; the goal is to ensure military personnel serving overseas and on Navy ships receive ballots with enough time to vote. 

So if Gardner prints ballots on October 31, he wouldn't be able to hold an election for at least 45 days, which is December 14. 

Hypothetically, if Gardner had an amazingly fast printer and a staff dedicated to getting every absentee ballot stamped and out the door in the hours between the end of the filing period and midnight, he could start the 45-day clock on October 28; the clock would then expire on December 12, so Gardner could hold the primary on December 13. But realistically, that's not going to happen.

That is an interesting argument, but as was the case with the early states fudging their rules/laws to schedule their primaries or caucuses, this one is guilty of not providing the proper context. Fine, let's say a voter does sue Gardner over a December primary MOVE/UOCAVA violation. How do those challenges work? What happened with past challenges to the new restrictions in the law?

As FHQ pointed out to a commenter who brought up this very same point the other day, this is an issue New Hampshire can most likely work around given the precedents set during the trial run waiver process the MOVE act triggered in 2010. Look particularly closely at the Hawaii and Wisconsin examples. Both Hawaii and Wisconsin held MOVE non-compliant primaries in September 2010. Both violated the 45 day buffer mandated by the law. And both struck different deals with the Department of Justice to ensure voters' rights were protected. In Hawaii that meant express mailing the ballots out to overseas voters. In Wisconsin the remedy was allow more time on the backend of the process to receive and count votes from those overseas. If that is all that is standing in the way of New Hampshire and a December primary, then the state can work around that.

FHQ is of the opinion that Gardner is bluffing too, but he is bluffing with little worry of the MOVE act.  As the one overseeing elections in the Granite state, the secretary is aware of the conflict and its implications.

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On Defining "Similar Contest" and Candidate Boycott Pledges

New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner yesterday reactivated the standoff between the Granite state and Nevada Republicans over the scheduling of their delegate selection events. And has once again set off a firestorm. The clearest signal that the statement yesterday sent was that Secretary Gardner has no intention of fighting with Iowa over the earliest January date available -- January 3. That shifted the battlefront back further out west to Nevada and the Republican Party caucus there.

Not surprisingly, Nevada Republicans were non-plussed about the development. The party has already set a date for its caucuses, January 14, and had opted to leave New Hampshire to their own devices. Passing on a fight with Iowa, New Hampshire again set its sights on the Nevada contest. The reaction was typical. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval fell into the same trap that many do when attempting to dissect the New Hampshire law that guides the setting of the presidential primary date in the state: the part about the similar election. Here's the law again:

"Presidential Primary Election. The presidential primary election shall be held on the second Tuesday in March or on a date selected by the secretary of state which is 7 days or more immediately preceding the date on which any other state shall hold a similar election, or holds a caucus or in the interpretation of the secretary of state holds any contest at which delegates are chosen for the national conventions, whichever is earlier, of each year when a president of the United States is to be elected or the year previous. Said primary shall be held in connection with the regular March town meeting or election or, if held on any other day, at a special election called by the secretary of state for that purpose. Any caucus of a state first held before 1975 shall not be affected by this provision."

Governor Sandoval and now an apparently-nervous New Hampshire Republican Party chair -- Wayne MacDonald -- are telling Secretary Gardner to re-read the election law citing the "similar election" clause. Here's MacDonald:

“I would like him [Gardner] to reconsider whether Nevada is a similar election,” Wayne MacDonald told the Granite Status. “January 10 makes an awful lot of sense for our primary. It keeps us seven days after Iowa and puts us ahead of Nevada. I think it just fits in well and we're going to be the first primary, which is critically important.”

...

“A primary election is an election, a caucus is a caucus,” MacDonald said. “With all due respect to Bill Gardner, I really think there is a difference. 

“One is run by the party and one is run by the state,” he said. “There's a difference between a primary and a caucus.”

That is all well and good; that a caucus is not a primary, but that is not the distinction the admittedly ambiguous law is making. Stated differently, that is not the interpretation Secretary Gardner is using. His metric is not primary or caucus, it is attention or no/little attention. If a contest in conflict with New Hampshire is going to garner attention -- attention that could draw from New Hampshire's impact if held to soon after the primary in the Granite state -- then it is a similar contest. If a primary or caucus garners no or little attention, the contest is deemed not similar. There is a reason Gardner was not threatened by the caucuses on January 5 -- in between Iowa and New Hampshire -- in Wyoming in 2008. Sure, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson visited, but not often and not often enough that the national press was willing to follow. Gardner's verdict? Not similar.

But Nevada's Republican caucuses are similar to New Hampshire. The Republican caucuses in the Silver state are an RNC-sanctioned contest. Candidates have already invested there -- perhaps not to the level of Iowa or New Hampshire or Florida, but they are invested to some degree. There is a debate there next week. The governor has already made an endorsement. Nevada matters in a way that Wyoming did not. It is or has been deemed a similar contest. Nevada too closely on the heels of the New Hampshire primary lessens the impact of the primary's results. New Hampshire would not resonate in the way that the seven day buffer in the law is intended to protect.

This is a dead issue, folks. He is the judge and jury on "similar election" and he has already ruled. Gardner ain't budgin'.

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And here is why:

The candidates are either independently, or based on some other motivating factor, pledging not campaign in Nevada if the Republican Party there does not change the January 14 caucus date to allow New Hampshire to schedule a primary in 2012. First it was Jon Huntsman and now Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich have joined in. We have not seen a pledge drive like this since the 1996 cycle when all of the major Republican candidates but Steve Forbes either pledged or did not campaign in Delaware when the First state's primary was -- like Nevada -- the Saturday after New Hampshire (or in this case the Saturday after a date New Hampshire is eyeing).

As FHQ explained last week, back in the olden days -- you know, in the 1990s and before -- any time states would schedule primaries or caucuses that conflicted with New Hampshire law, there would inevitably be a pledge -- unofficial or otherwise -- on the part of the candidates to stay out of the offending state. The message: New Hampshire is a known quantity. Winning there matters, or has proven to matter. The Delawares and Nevadas of the world are trying to do what only New Hampshire can, but they can't. That is the New Hampshire perspective. I know. I know. People will argue with me until they are blue in the face that other states could do as good or better than New Hampshire at leading off the process. I'm not here to debate that. It is a reality. And the candidate behavior backs that up. Their actions -- and no it isn't yet every one of the candidates this time -- endorses the notion of New Hampshire holding a special place in the process.

Incidentally, this sort of behavior underlines the type and potential effectiveness of the penalty the DNC tried out in 2008 -- the one I alluded to in my piece over at Crystal Ball today.

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What Bill Gardner's Statement Really Means

The instant reaction to New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner's press release -- Why New Hampshire's Primary Tradition is Important -- today has been about what he said.¹ More telling from FHQ's perspective is what he didn't say. The state he cited was Nevada; that for New Hampshire to be able to fit into the 2012 calendar year would require the Nevada Republican Party to reset the date of the party's caucuses for Tuesday, January 17 at the earliest. That would allow New Hampshire to hold a January 10 primary, and all would presumably be right with the world.

But Gardner only mentioned Iowa in passing, saying that with "Iowa officials tentatively decid[ing] that their caucuses would be on that date [January 3]," New Hampshire would be left with no other recourse than to hold a primary in December. To FHQ that signals a couple of things:

First, it possibly demonstrates that the game of chicken with the Iowa GOP is either not going at all or is not going at all well for New Hampshire at the moment. With Nevada Republicans set for January 14 caucuses, that should have settled the score between Nevada and New Hampshire. As FHQ has mentioned, that shifted the process to a battle over the last spot in January between Iowa and New Hampshire. The only outcome that keeps both states in 2012 and is consistent with New Hampshire state law -- that does not also include a Nevada move -- is for New Hampshire to take the January 3 slot and for Iowa to hold caucuses a week later. Either that has been a nonstarter for the Iowa Republican Party or Secretary Gardner has yielded to custom: Iowa first, New Hampshire second. If it is the former, Iowa has essentially called Gardner's bluff on going in December. That the secretary has shifted back to discussing the position of Nevada's Republican caucuses indicates that he does not want to trigger the nuclear option. Again, in the short term, that may keep New Hampshire as the first primary, but in the long term, a December contest blows up the current system or at least puts the privileged positions of the early states on trial.

That is at least part of the calculus in New Hampshire right now. But it could be that Gardner wants to keep the current line up and is lobbying Iowa and perhaps South Carolina to gang up on Nevada to maintain the status quo in the future. Let's call this an olive branch to Iowa. Gardner is basically ceding January 3 to Iowa, but knows that Democrats and Republicans in the Hawkeye state want to preserve their position. A December primary won't hurt just hurt New Hampshire; it will hurt all the early states. By giving Iowa January 3, but continuing to threaten to hold a December primary, Secretary Gardner is upping the pressure on Iowa (and South Carolina) to come to the fore and twist some arms in Nevada.

That's a clever little twist to all of this.

In sum, Gardner is signaling today that he doesn't really want to pull the trigger on a December option, but has given Iowa January 3 while keeping December on the table as a means of increasing the collective early state pressure on Nevada. No, as some have pointed out, the RNC has no real ability to arbitrate this, but three on one early state vigilante justice might serve the same purpose.

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¹ Here is the text of the press release from the New Hampshire secretary of state's office:
Why New Hampshire is First 10.12.11

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On Compression and Presidential Primary Calendars

Perhaps this is just FHQ, but these continued references to a compressed 2012 presidential primary calendar are curious. There are these competing narratives out there. One concerns the compression of the calendar while the other discusses how the early start will make this the longest primary season ever.  The confusion boils down to a lack of the proper context, and Alex Altman at Time's Swampland blog is the latest to fall into the trap.

First of all, it is difficult to objectively look at the likely 2012 presidential primary calendar and make the argument that it is compressed. That is even more true when the evolution of the calendar is considered. Recall that the plan was for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to hold February contests while the remaining states could choose dates on or after the first Tuesday in March (through the second Tuesday in June). If Florida, as was talked about early on, had carved out a spot between South Carolina and Super Tuesday, then perhaps we could talk about a compressed calendar. But even then, that description is a stretch. That is an even tougher sell when you consider that the same basic alignment and spacing is being preserved among the first four states and Florida; they are just a month earlier now. Couple that with the fact that most of the states scheduled to hold February contests entering 2011 opted to move back and move back to dates other than the earliest date allowed by the two national parties -- the first Tuesday in March.

How can the calendar be compressed if there is no noticeable clustering among the early contests? Now, if Iowa and New Hampshire end up going within days of each other then perhaps those two contests could be described as compressed. The overall calendar, however, is not.

There are two items that are being talked about simultaneously and both need to be extricated from each other to some extent. There is invisible primary campaigning and there is the calendar. The calendar is as extended as it has ever been, and with contests even more evenly dispersed through March, April, May and June, it is the least compressed it has been since the early 1980s. There is no compression to the calendar.

Where there is compression -- and it is due to the elongation of the calendar -- is in the amount of time between now and the first contest. That is the end of the invisible primary; as it fades and yields to actual voting. The time the candidates have to campaign, raise money, garner endorsements and organize prior to Iowa and/or New Hampshire has been compressed greatly because of the decision in Florida and the subsequent jockeying among the first four states. And no, it should not come as any surprise that that time crunch more negatively affects the candidates whom either haven't done this before and/or who are not the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Any time taken away from candidates attempting to get to the same level as Mitt Romney gives the former Massachusetts governor an increased advantage. Mayer and Busch (2004) have shown that.

To his credit, Altman does get around to the notion of an accelerated schedule, but not before having seemingly lumped the overall primary calendar into the equation first. There is a distinction to be made between the invisible primary and the primary calendar itself, semantics-based though it may be, but FHQ will not be so naive as to suggest that the two are completely separate. The compression of the close of the invisible primary makes it harder for non-frontrunners to make the case in the early states which affects the results there which has an effect on later states, etc. [And that chain reaction begets the "Romney is inevitable" meme that folks are starting to prematurely make.]

There is an overall sequence to this that includes the presidential primary calendar and that overall sequence has been compressed as those contests loom. But the presidential primary calendar itself is not compressed. The primary calendar portion of that overall sequence is anything but.

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Housekeeping: Hawaii Democrats to Caucus on March 7

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The Hawaii Democratic Party has amended their 2012 delegate selection plan based on the comments the party received as part of the public comment period for the initial draft. Originally, the plan called for precinct caucuses to take place on Saturday, April 7, 2012, but that date, as was pointed out in some of the comments, conflicts with Passover and Easter weekend, thus preventing a number of party members from attending.

According to documents posted by the Democratic Party of Hawaii, the precinct caucuses were moved up to Wednesday, March 7, 2012 to avoid that problem. The DPH State Central Committee voted on the change -- after submission of the plan to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee -- during its meeting in early June.

The party confirmed to FHQ by phone on Tuesday afternoon that the Wednesday caucuses are accurate. It is rare for caucuses to be held on days other than Tuesday or over the weekend.

Find FHQ's updated 2012 presidential primary calendar here.

Hat tip to Tony Roza at The Green Papers for bringing this to our attention.

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