The NY Times has a great article on Florida’s efforts to move up the presidential primaries in 2008 (Increase influence).
Larry J. Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, said that leapfrogging ahead of other “megastates†and blatantly breaking the party rules would be shrewd on Florida’s part.
“It’s the smartest move I’ve seen this cycle,†Professor Sabato said. “They are the only one that has figured out that if they go first, they could be the megastate to tip all megastates, and Florida could decide the nomination.â€
Moving our state primary to Jan 29 puts us ahead of California, Texas and NY and could influence the races more than Iowa or New Hampshire.
The sad thing is that the races for the nominations could be over in two big weekends.
Let’s do away with the national conventions and just have a national primary where the votes are held nationwide on one day. Then six months later the general election is held. You could even have a run-off if a candidate doesn’t get a majority in his party’s primary.
….too simple