Well, they’ve gone and done it.
Florida has officially changed the date of its presidential primary to January 31, 2012.
Politico quotes the Iowa chairman:
The arrogance shown by Florida’s elected leadership is disappointing, but not surprising. Equally troubling is to see this petulant behavior rewarded with our national convention. The consequences of Florida’s intransigence must be swift and severe, including the refusal by the RNC to credential or seat any member of Florida’s presidential primary date commission at the 2012 RNC convention in Tampa.
Regarding the timing of the First in the Nation Iowa Caucuses, Iowa will remain first. Consistent with tradition, the final Iowa Caucus date will be announced once New Hampshire sets the date of its First in the Nation Primary.
In other words, what we predicted yesterday here will happen: a front-loaded presidential primary system guaranteed to pick an establishment GOP candidate. Mitt Romney = John McCain 2.0.
Right now, the Iowa caucuses are scheduled for February 6. Look for those to be moved up about a month, or right after the holidays. That means folks in Iowa will have to deal with campaign politicians and media types screwing up their Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.
The New Hampshire primary is set for February 14. That, too, will be moved up, interfering with, as RSM points out here, the BCS National Championship Game. Of course, he’s rooting for Alabama to be there and we’re rooting for Wisconsin, but still … few Americans will be paying attention to politics at that point, and thanks to Florida, the GOP race could very well be over by the time the calendar turns to February, rendering any caucuses and primaries, including ours here in Wisconsin, meaningless.
RSM notes:
Let’s just hope Reince Priebus can stop these crazy Florida bastards from ruining Christmas.
Reince, the ball is in your court.
As we wrote yesterday:
A frontloaded primary/caucus system that’s almost guaranteed to produce a weak candidate based on whatever candidate has the most money and best organization and coupled with the appearance of momentum. The flames of the latter are certain to be flamed by the state-run media, which hardly has the GOP’s best interests at heart.
In 2008, this process gave us John McCain, arguably the weakest candidate that could have headed up the Republican ticket. Most likely this time around, it will produce Mitt Romney, the Next Guy In Line.
Yawn. Talk about depressing the GOP base.
That’s the end result: the Cocktail Party GOP showing the Tea Party who’s boss. Same old RINO crap sandwich. No Herman Cain. No Sarah Palin. No real conservative.
As Judge Smails told his spoiled rotten grandson in Caddyshack: “You’ll get nothing and like it.”
[...] else but Perry or Romney) from having a fair chance to compete with the big-money front-runners.The Underground Conservative predicts “a front-loaded presidential primary system guaranteed to pick an establishment GOP [...]
[...] The Underground Conservative piles on. In other words, what we predicted yesterday here will happen: a front-loaded presidential primary system guaranteed to pick an establishment GOP candidate. Mitt Romney = John McCain 2.0. … RSM notes: Let’s just hope Reince Priebus can stop these crazy Florida bastards from ruining Christmas. [...]
[...] See our previous coverage of the Florida decision here and here. [...]
[...] Posted by John Hitchcock on 2011/10/04 RS McCain has reported the news that the South Carolina Primary will be held on January 21, ahead of the leap-frogging Florida Primary (January 31), and Nevada has tied their Caucus to be held the week following the New Hampshire Primary. This as a result of Florida moving their Primary up at a cost of half their delegates. RS McCain declared that’s exactly what would happen. So did I. And so did The Underground Conservative. [...]