The presidential nomination process in the Democratic and Republican parties is on the verge of being upended with a move by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders to shift next year’s California presidential primaries to February 5th. The move would totally alter the dynamic of the presidential campaign.
A bipartisan bill was introduced in the state Senate yesterday. The beneficiaries of the move will probably fall in one or more of several categories. Those who do very well in the earliest states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Those who are well known and very well funded. And those who are relatively liberal Democrats and more moderate Republicans.
The move would place California fifth on the calendar for the Democratic presidential nomination fight, following Iowa on January 14th, Nevada on January 19th, New Hampshire on January 22nd, and South Carolina on January 29th. (The NWN report on the Las Vegas event kicking off the Nevada presidential caucuses is below, with video.) The Republicans currently have Iowa and New Hampshire first and second, though other changes are in the air.
The former action superstar, as seen in the NWN video below, made it very clear this week that he wants to move California’s presidential primary forward to early February, saying he has met with legislative leaders from both parties on the matter. “I’ve spoken to the (legislative) leaders about this and I think it’s something we should do. I’m interested in making California a player.”
“Right now, think about it. We are the number one state in the union, we’re the number one place in the world,” he noted, “and we are kind of an afterthought when it comes to the presidential campaign. I mean, all those guys come out here and they clean up, they take the money and they run. Millions and millions of dollars, both parties, but we are not part of the decision-making. Or that they are even coming here campaigning here. Because they just write it off because California is not relevant.”
“So what we want to do,” said Schwarzenegger, “is we want to make California relevant. And I think the way we make it relevant is by moving up the primaries to February. That is something we’ve talked about and I think that is something we should shoot for.”
So when Schwarzenegger said earlier that he intended to influence the presidential election but did not intend to “chase the candidates from primary to primary,” this is why.
High-ranking sources in both parties in California expect this to happen. The national parties can do little to block it. The primaries for state offices would remain in June.
Still undecided in negotiations between the governor and legislative leaders is whether the California presidential primaries will be winner-take-all, proportional representation, or determined by congressional district in terms of the allocation of delegates to the national party conventions.
Presidential nominees are selected by vote of the delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions.
The early California presidential primary would give an unprecedented Western tilt to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. California would, of course, continue its role as a gold mine for presidential fundraisers. Then Nevada will follow Iowa as the second-in-the-nation contest. California would be the mother-of-all early primaries two-and-a-half weeks later. And the presidential nomination itself will be formally decided at the Democratic national convention in Denver, Colorado.
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It’s a gigantic budget. Don’t you have something else to worry about on a Saturday night?
County clerks, Bill, county clerks. Stephen Colbert fears bears, and I have 58 angry, snarling, County election officials in my head raising the hue and cry ovwer their busted budgets. — Actully I like the separation of the Presidential Primary from leislative and county primaries. It used to be that way until the 1940s when the state and local primary was moved from late August to the date fo the Presidential Primary in June to save money. So why not move the stae primary back to August (and a different budget year).
Wasn’t California’s Pres primary in March, on Super Tuesday, in ’04 and ’00? Why would we be moving back to June this time?
I don’t get your question.
Well, first off, we’ve tried this before. Thankfully, they’re leaving the primary for non-presidential offices alone – that was a real disaster when we did this move before.
It is interesting though, to correlate the digression of politics in the country as a whole, with the constant changes to the primary system, starting with the “opening up” of the system by the Democrats in the 1972 election.
Maybe it was better when things were decided in “smoke-filled rooms” and conventions were a gathering to rubber-stamp the decisions of the “wise-men”.
Maybe so, but we’re not going back to that.
Meanwhile, we’re getting a quite different early primary lineu-up, which will make for very interesting times for NWN.
jonny15