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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Holy shit!
This is very exciting.
While I am certainly not a GOP geek, conversant with all of the latest rules, I know the California Republican Party strongly asserted during the Open Primary initiative battle that they alone controlled the process for nominating their candidates. While the state government can move the election date, I believe the state and national parties decide how delegates to their own convention shall be awarded.
Although the Governor may want a winner-take-all system that allows his political team/thugs? to make the delegate selections, more conservative candidates and activists favor the proportional representation or district-by-district systems that gives those who disagree with the Governor a chance to participate and earn votes.
We can talk seriously about the term limits and redistricting changes when Nunez and Perata demonstrate real commitment to political reform. Last time they made the Common Cause, Leauge of Women Voters and Voices of Reform folks look like naive chumps as the leaders played hide the redistricting bill last summer…
The candidates will have to raise alot of money to be competitive with the primaries stacked up like this!…and when you look at that schedule of primaries , now it does not seem that the announced candidates jumped in all that “early” !
The governor’s people are thugs? Come now. No more than me when I’ve done this stuff. They’re lovely people.
Barbara, the earliest states could set the table and California could end the contests.
Mr. Bradley: the earliest states could set the table and California could end the contests
Don’t understand your response.
I understand you are saying we could be the “decider” but your not downplaying the need for the candidates to raise a ton of money to have operations, media in several states more or less at once…or are you?
I’m saying theny have to raise a lot money. But I’m also sayin they may not have to spend that heavily after California, because it could be over.
Definitely mixed news. While it’s good that the impact of states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, which do not “represent the face of America” will be lessened, the potential for the race being over by the first week in February destroys the concept that the primary process will insure a nominee broadly-based and representative. Given this, I wonder if the decision to have the nomination come out of a series of nation-wide primary contests wasn’t a mistake. It certainly hasn’t worked that way.
“after California, because it could be over”
I don’t know…I am not sure any of the candidates are going to have decisive wins…both parties seem very testy, fll of in-fighting and full of “camps”
I just realized this is my first Prez primary as a DTS… I have to read up on the rules as it applies to DTS voters…
One thing that will be interesting is the current caucus system the Democrats have for selecting Delegate slates. Given the current rules, if the primary winds up in February, then the caucuses will be sometime around Thanksgiving which means along with everything else, that some very important people will be forced to make their choices very early in the process.
The first four states can winnow and then comes California for the steel cage match. The campaign can continue after California but anyone who is not close there will be in bad shape. Which of those states has Bill not worked?
South Carolina.
Fascinating! I wonder if this move will set off a rush of other states to move their primaries earlier, so they can remain relevant after this move by the 500 lbs. electoral gorilla?
BTW, I don’t see this encouraging moderate Republican candidates. Primaries bring out the Party faithful, and for the CRP, those are conservatives. (One of the reasons Republican statewide candidates have done poorly in recent years is that the CRP keeps nominating candidates too conservative for the general electorate, such as Herschensohn and Fong.)
I’m on the road in a traffic jam rigjht now but Feb 5 is the soonest anyone can go.
Clinton is running for pres! Time to break out a good bottle of wine.
I don’t know where this move falls, but I was under the impression that it was already decided that California’s primary would be in June in non-presidential years.
That makes sense, because primaries for state offices should not be held so far ahead of the general election. It turns campaigning into a year-long process that citizens tune out and then consider trivial.
I’m surprised national dems haven’t put a stop to the one-upmanship of advancing presidential primaries. The candidate who doesn’t have enough money to keep campaining after the primaries is dead in the water until the convention, giving a well-funded opponent a huge advantage in the ability to define their opponent.
Are we truly talking presidential politics here, or is this mostly a ruse for state legislators currently termed out in 2008 to put a ballot measure on the February ballot to extend their terms and be allowed to run for reelection in what will still be safe gerrymandered districts. This would cause much turmoil among candidates now raising dollars to run in the 2008 open seats. Will they remain open or not. This could wipe out competitive elections until 2012.
My experience is that most political reforms have had unintended (or at least undeclared) side effects which in most cases create more problems than they solve.
Unfortunately, I fear that both the Feb. 5 primary and the potential change in term limits fall in this category. They both look like good government changes at first glance, but they both have serious down sides which could leave us worse off, no matter which party we support.
A Feb. 5 California primary can only contribute to a stampede to the front of the primary pack by other states. Even if California maintains fifth spot in that rush, is it worth it to tilt the presidential selection process to make the current ridiculously long presidential campaigns even longer and give the best known and best financed candidates an even bigger advantage in both parties? I expect that both Californians and the country as a whole will be worse off.
I also think modifying our term limits law would be an improvement. But if we enact it separately without linking it to redistricting reform, that takes away our best chance of reforming reapportionment, which I believe is the most important political reform needed in California. Without reform of reapportionment, we are condemning ourselves to an indeterminate sentence of political gridlock. The current system all but guarantees that we continue to elect the most uncompromising ideologues of the far left and far right who equate any compromise to political treason. That is not what we need.
So, as bad as our political/governing situation may be today, we could make it worse.
Illinois is also thinking about moving its primary to an earlier date (I think Feb. 5 is what is being bandied about). The initiative is coming from our state house speaker in the hope that it would throw more support behind Obama.
Schwarzenegger didn’t take that job to keep a seat warm that is for sure.
Sounds like some folks are jumping ahead to make an assumption, and then forgetting that NOTHING happens to term limits without an initiaitve.
As for Illinois, I reported on that possibility a while back. An Obama win in his home state would not balance out an Obama loss in California.
Doug Willis nails it. You won’t like the result of this, but it will take two cycles to realize that (maybe three), because you will keep chalking problems up to one-off events, when they will be structural under this system.
There are many downsides to NH and Iowa for leading primary states, but they do have the one most important advantage: they are small. It is not just who ultimately wins the nomination that is important, but the undercard of ideas and competence that make the long primary season worthwhile. The eventual winner needs money and fame to prevail, but needs other things as well. Welcome to the new world, where only money and fame will matter.
I’m not actually sure I think that an early CA race would necessarily advantage the farthest-left Dem candidate (whoever that might be; certainly I doubt Kucinich will do well)…
I know that I haven’t met many CA Dem activists who like Hillary, though she may do pretty well with some of the less activist types who still vote, since she’ll probably have the biggest budget. There seems to be a pretty even split between Edwards and Obama people (thus far cordial), as well as fragments for various other people (even Kerry!).
Our primary voters tilt left, sure, but I think Dem primary voters are concerned (possibly more-so than Repub primary voters?) about “electability”… We may not, collectively, be very good at judging it, but I think that concern reins things in a bit, relative to, say, a gubernatorial primary, where people are thinking, “Hey, CA’s a blue state, we can nominate whoever we want.” (Also — they may not think that anymore.)
In any case, I still am not sure I like this idea. But, if it happens, it sure will make things interesting… in the sense of the apocryphal Chinese historian’s curse.
Good article, thanks!
http://www.iowansforromney.com
Re Kandy Kid’s post: Unless I’m misreading them, DNC rules require that delegates be allocated more or less proportionately among candidates receiving at least 15% of the vote. See Rule 13B at
http://a9.g.akamai.net/7/9/8082/v001/democratic1.download.akamai.com/8082/pdfs/2008delegateselectionrules.pdf . The GOP, on the other hand, leaves it up to the states, and it makes sense for a state, particularly a large one, to use a winner take all system in order to maximize its impact.
I agree with carole w. now for a second time. I too will be opening a bottle of wine tonight to celebrate Hillary’s announcement.
Yet the celebration will be for the opposite reason. If the national Democrats nominate a too-liberal and too-divisive establishment candidate again, it will help compensate for GOP problems in some key swing states.
Could Republicans get so lucky as to run against another Democrat who will get as much support from the middle as Angelides did??
A 1997 Silver Oak cabernet is in order.
KK,
Good question. I listened to Clinton’s you tube announcement and cleverly she is speaking to the middle class/middle ground voters. If California moves up and becomes the power state,we will elect the power candidate. Now if she picked Webb as her vice, this would be a done deal.
I am willing to bet a 1999 Dom Perignon on my candidate.
There were California polling numbers last week that showed Senator Clinton at 36, Senator Obama at 33, followed (way behind) be John Edwards at – OUCH! – 6%. Of the eight states released in the poll, it was Senator Clinton’s strongest. (Hotline On Call)
I’m not sure about this, but could the DNC (maybe the Rules Committee?) have the power to not seat any delegation that moves up its Primary?
I know that was an issue with the talk of Florida moving up to the same day as South Carolina. But, I think the issue there was the “Four Week Window” that was limited to the “First Four” of IA, NV, NH and SC.
At the Boston convention, California Delegates account for about ten percent of the national total. While many of those are the “Super Delegates” there’s still a lot to be picked up through the Primary vote.
An intersting idea on the Webb VP nod…
Virginia Governor Tim Kaine could appoint a Dem to finish out the term, and Mark Warner could take John Warner’s seat in the ’08 contest. We’d have a statewide trifecta in Virginia!
Why should the Iowa, New Hampshire model be saved?
Frankly, they ought to have a primary day, and an election day, or better yet, allow other parties ballot access, and let the smoke filled room decide the candidates.
Some argue it worked better. Though it is seemingly less “democratic”, the fact is the more parties and shorter elections would make for better debates with more substance.
Today’s campaigns only really empower big media, which makes it all about personality and horse races – not policy.
That worked out well.
The California Republican Party Rules concerning delegate selection HAVE been decided already: We have adopted the “Haynes Amendment” which makes our state winner-take-all by Congressional District. That means that the presidential candidate who wins the most votes in each Congressional District will win all the delegates and alternates from that district. The few statewide “at large” delegates will be awarded to the candidate who wins the plurality statewide. Read Section 6.01 of the Party Bylaws at:
http://www.cagop.org/include/2006_08_20%20Bylaws.pdf
If the Democrat Legislature plans to change internal Republican Party rules by statute, they will face a lawsuit they cannot win.
Tom Hudson, “GOP Geek”
Vice President
California Republican Assembly
This definitely doesn’t help moderate Republicans. Arnold is only the governor because of an extremely odd event. He would have never won the primary to get in that role. Because of the big cities California is considered blue, but in every other place besides the Bay area and L.A. California is rather red. Just look at who the party ran for senator against both Feinstein and Boxer in recent years. Not a least bit moderate.
California is not moderate. It’s divided.
Well, no.
Actually, overwhelming majorities of California Republican voters back raising the minimum wage, strong moves against the greenhouse effect, and moderate social policies.
The Republicans haven’t developed many winning candidates here, but that is a function of internal party politics. The two who won last November are moderates. And Schwarzenegger would have won a Republican primary to begin with because the conservatives have no one who can touch him.
“They may not have to spend that heavily after California, because it could be over.”
He’s still The Terminator, baby.
Bruno is right on. The primary system may well have been great for the late 19th/early 20th century media environment but in today’s world they only serve to keep the two party system secure and keep the debate narrow.
Someone else mentioned unintended consequences earlier, primaries sound like the progressive option, but really why should the citezenry of the entire country continue to pay for what is essentially party business?
Particularly when you consider other political voices are not given equal access to the same selection mechanisms.
We have pretty moderate Rep voters and pretty extreme Rep activists.
We have pretty moderate Rep voters and pretty extreme Rep activists.
I think this will be a good move for us here in Calif. We have always been so late in the electoral process as to be almost irrelevant. And it shouldnt be that way for a larger state. Arnie hasn’t had a lot of wins lately so this could be a very good thing for him too.
Huh?!
> Arnie hasn’t had a lot of wins lately so this could be a very good thing for him too.
California Earthquake
California is thinking about making their Presidential primaries much earlier, to make California not the first state to have its primary bu…
It is true that the party system does serve to narrow debate and to emphasize hyerpartisan interests.
Yet, barring a powerful independent candidacy, which is not impossible, that is the system that we have in the 2008 presidential cycle.
How much will two primaries cost the taxpayers????? $80,000,000 to a $100,000,000?
Why would a primary cost twice as much as a special election?
don’t you remember that the statewide recall election cost $70,000,000. Won’t a staewide election 5 years later cost more?
Four years, not five years.
Primaries cost less than general elections. Which in turn cost less than rush job special elections.
The amout will be a rounding error in the state budget.
2008-2003=5
I thought the CCPOA just got all the rounding errors in the state budget.
Uh, the recall was in late 2003, the primary is in early 2008. No funny math, now.