http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/08/2942



  August 8, 2007, 12:30 pm

First Presidential Votes Might Be Cast in 2007



Jackie Calmes reports on the 2008 presidental race.



CampaignThe first 2008 presidential votes may be

moving into 2007 after all, making a race that has

started earlier than ever even more intense.



South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson

will announce that he is moving its primary date ahead

of Florida’s Jan. 29 vote, to reclaim his state

party’s “first in the South” presidential-nominating

banner. But he will do so in New Hampshire, home of

the first-in-the-nation primary. And he will be joined

by New Hampshire’s longtime Secretary of State Bill

Gardner, who alone has the power to set that state’s

date for both parties, now tentatively Jan. 22.



If both were to move their dates up, that likely would

force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses

as the first nominating contests of any kind — to

consider moving its date from next Jan. 14 into

pre-Christmas December.



A prominent South Carolina Republican who spoke with

Dawson this week said that both South Carolina’s

Republicans and New Hampshire would make a change. But

another source suggested that only Dawson would

announce a change, while New Hampshire’s Gardner would

appear as a show of support for South Carolina

Republicans and remain mum on his plans for now. One

reason: The Democratic Party’s rules committee meets

later this month, and all of this state maneuvering is

in violation of both parties’ rules. Those rules have

sought to prevent the front-loading of presidential

nominating contests, but the threatened penalties —

forfeiture of convention delegates — have proven weak.



Traditionally New Hampshire and Iowa have coordinated

to protect their early-voting status — with the

support of the national parties, and presidential

candidates eager for their votes — but with each

presidential-election cycle, the pressure has grown

from other states coveting candidates’ attention to

them and their issues. By law, Iowa’s party caucuses

must be eight days before New Hampshire’s primaries,

and New Hampshire, by law, requires its primaries to

be a week before any state’s similar contest.



So New Hampshire had tentatively planned on Jan. 22

primaries, eight days after Iowa’s caucuses. South

Carolina Republicans had planned to hold primaries on

Feb. 2; state Democrats’ are on Jan 29. Speaking in

something of a riddle, Dawson told his fellow state

Republican this week that South Carolina’s Republican

primary would be at least 10 days before Florida’s

Jan. 29 primaries, but not on the same day as Nevada’s

caucuses, which are Jan. 19, and 12 days after New

Hampshire’s primary.



That suggests New Hampshire ultimately could be moving

as early as the first week of January. Iowa would then

be certain to move up from Jan. 14. To avoid getting

caught in the holiday period, Iowans have said the

caucuses would have to be in mid-December.



While all the campaigns have braced for that prospect,

it still would wreak havoc in their Iowa operations.

Since Iowa’s unique caucuses require getting

supporters out to vote for an entire winter evening,

in unfamiliar living rooms or meetings halls across

the state, they pose an organizational challenge in a

typical year. But, lamented one campaign’s Iowa

operative, “How do you do this mobilizing around

Christmas? It would be a real challenge.”



“Nobody wants to go in December, but Iowa will be

first,” said Carrie Giddins, communications director

for the state Democratic Party.