Florida Presidential Primary to January 31

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The Florida Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee today selected January 31 as the date of the Florida presidential primary.

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Calendar Correction Corner: Florida -- Not Surprisingly -- Will Wait as Long as It Can Before Deciding on a Presidential Primary Date

The reporting today surrounding the Florida Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee's (PPPDSC) first meeting has been all over the place and not in a good way. There have been a couple of vague reports that the date would be finalized at the meeting today. Neither article mentioned that it has been known since last week when the committee members were named that a second meeting was already scheduled for next Friday -- the day prior to the deadline by which a date decision must be made.  If that reality wasn't enough, the news that the committee has decided to wait it out as long as it can following the meeting today should make it clearer.

But even that Central Florida Political Pulse post (linked above) is misleading.

On Missouri:

Missouri — itself a self-proclaimed bellwether state for presidential contests — has also upended the traditional primary apple-cart by setting its primary date for Feb. 7 next year.

Signs are ominous out of Jefferson City, but there is still a state Senate session scheduled for today and the March presidential primary bill is on the calendar. The Missouri Senate may opt to adjourn the special session and in the process kill the presidential primary legislation, but we won't know that until later. In other words, the Missouri primary date should not be discussed in the past tense. ...unless there's something else to report. [NOTE: Just between you, me and the wall: FHQ is getting a fair amount of sustained traffic out of Jefferson City today. Present tense. Hint, hint. Nudge, nudge.]

On waiting to the last minute:

On Friday, the Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee held its first meeting — but opted to wait until the last possible moment next week to make a decision because South Carolina hasn’t yet set a date. Florida has to report its date to the political parties by Oct. 1, next Saturday. That primary date could fall on February 14 or 21, or even earlier depending on when South Carolina votes.

FHQ has absolutely no problem with this until that last phrase. Is there ANY indication that the South Carolina Republican Party is going to settle on a date in the next week? Not that I have seen. And that makes this statement from one member of the PPPDSC harder to stomach:

“I have no problem moving it up as long as we know where everybody else is,” said Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Miami.

There is a sequence to this and Florida is not going to have the benefit of knowing the dates on which at least the first four states will hold their primaries and caucuses if not a few others. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are waiting on Florida, not the other way around. Iowa is waiting on New Hampshire is waiting on Nevada is waiting on South Carolina is waiting on Florida is waiting on...

...well, it isn't South Carolina. As FHQ tweeted this morning, look to South Carolina and Florida to determine whether Colorado potentially holding February 7 caucuses will impact the schedule. If that is a problem to Florida and/or South Carolina, then they will jump Colorado and Minnesota. That will, in turn, impact the other early states. But the bottom line is that this works sequentially with Iowa or New Hampshire making the final move. [NOTE: Georgia's decision looms over this as well. The secretary of state there has until December 1 to choose a date for the primary in the Peach state.]

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One more and then I'll stop. Here's a quote from PPPDSC member and former Florida Governor Bob Martinez from Central Florida News that follows a host of recent misleading headlines and articles about the primary calendar.

"Arizona has changed its date officially, Michigan is doing the same and so is Missouri. So there's a little bit of movement out there before we choose a date,'' Martinez said. 

This is a real pet peeve of mine right now. Neither Arizona, Michigan, nor potentially Missouri have  changed (or potentially changed) their respective presidential primary dates. In each case, those states have merely maintained the dates that have been on the books since the 2008 cycle. Look at the original 2012 presidential primary calendar FHQ put together in December 2008. There are Arizona and Michigan on February 28 and there's Missouri on February 7. No movement. Now, there has been talk and some action toward moving those states' primaries in some various ways, but it has amounted to nothing. What has happened is that everyone else has moved away from the February dates that were allowed by the party rules in 2008 and are not in 2012. There's no jumping, leapfrogging, or any other type of movement going on in any of those three states -- at least not relative to 2008.

With Florida -- again, not surprisingly -- punting until next week, shift your focus to Missouri and Colorado for the time being.

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Members of President Preference Primary Date Selection Committee Named in Florida

Speaking of the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee...

With the clock ticking down to the October 1 deadline by which state law requires a decision on the date of the Florida presidential primary to be made, Governor Rick Scott, House Speaker Dean Cannon and Senate President Mike Haridopolos today named the members of the committee to complete that task.¹ The nine member -- three members chosen by the governor and the state House and Senate leaders -- Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee (PPPDSC) is made up of six Republicans and three Democrats. The three Republican leaders had to select at least one Democrat based on the law behind the creation of the PPPDSC. That explains the 6-3 Republican advantage on the committee.

The nine members according to Michael Bender at The Buzz (St. Petersburg Times) are: 

Republicans: Jenn Ungru, former Gov. Bob Marinez, Sens. John Thrasher of St. Augustine and Rene Garcia of Hialeah, and Reps. Carlos Lopez Cantera of Miami and Seth McKeel of Lakeland.

Democrats: Sen. Gary Siplin of Orlando, former Sen. Al Lawson and state Rep. Cynthia Stafford of Miami.

The News Service of Florida is reporting that the PPPDSC is set to have its first meeting next week on Friday, September 23. That is just eight days prior to the deadline for a date decision. It is also a date that overlaps with the planned Presidency V event which will bring some of the Republican presidential hopefuls to the state for a debate and straw poll. A second meeting is scheduled the following Friday; the day before the October 1 deadline.

UPDATE: Of the six legislative members of the committee (four of which are Republicans), one, John Thrasher, has already endorsed Romney. Here is the full list of Florida Republican endorsements thus far..

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¹ Here are the press releases from...
Scott:

Today, Florida Governor Rick Scott announced his three choices for Florida’s Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee.
Former Republican Governor Bob Martinez served as Florida’s 40th governor from 1987 to 1991. Before that he served as the mayor of Tampa, the city where he was born.
Former Democrat Senator Al Lawson represented Floridians from 11 panhandle counties from 2001 to 2011 in the state senate, and before that he served nearly two decades in the Florida House of Representatives.
Jenn Ungru, a Republican, is Governor Scott’s deputy chief of staff with oversight responsibilities over the Department of State. She has served in the Scott administration since the inauguration and has more than a decade of campaign and election experience in Florida and nationwide.

Cannon:

Please find attached my correspondence to Secretary of State Kurt Browning appointing the following House Members to the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee:
Representative Carlos Lopez-Cantera
Representative Seth McKeel
Representative Cynthia Stafford

Haridopolos:

Senate President Mike Haridopolos (R-Merritt Island) today announced the appointment of Senators Rene Garcia, Gary Siplin and John Thrasher to the Presidential Preference Primary Committee.
Senator Rene Garcia (R-Hialeah) currently represents Florida Senate District 40, which consists of part of Miami-Dade County.  Garcia first was elected to the Senate in 2010.  Prior to serving in the Florida Senate, Garcia was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2008.
Senator Gary Siplin (D-Orlando) currently represents Florida Senate District 19, which consists of parts of Orange and Osceola Counties.  Siplin was first elected to the Senate in 2002 and was subsequently reelected.  Prior to serving in the Florida Senate, Siplin was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2002.
Senator John Thrasher (R-St. Augustine) currently represents Florida Senate District 8, which consists of parts of Duval, Flagler, Nassau, St. Johns and Volusia Counties.  Thrasher was first elected to the Senate in 2009 and was subsequently reelected.  Prior to serving in the Florida Senate, Thrasher was a member of the Florida House of Representatives from 1992-2000; he also served as Speaker of the Florida House from 1998-2000.

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The Florida Presidential Primary is Not Currently Scheduled for January 31

One question that FHQ gets periodically is about whether Florida is or is not scheduled -- according to state election law -- on the last Tuesday in January. As has been recounted in great detail in this space over the last several months, the state legislature ceded the authority to schedule the presidential primary date to the newly created Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee (PPPDSC).

But the question remains: Is the PPPDSC making a decision to change the date from January 31 in the 2012 cycle or are they working from a blank slate (with the ability to set the date between the first Tuesday in January and the first Tuesday in March)?

Admittedly, FHQ has done a poor job of relating this to our readers as well as a broader audience, and I would like to set the record straight once and for all. The enrolled version of HB 1355 -- the bill that created the PPPDSC -- strikes the reference in the presidential primary law to the last Tuesday in January (see 103.101(1)(b) for the details). And the 2011 Florida Statutes reflect that change (see the same 103.101(1)(b) section).

In other words, the Florida primary is completely date-less at this point in the evolution of the 2012 presidential primary calendar and has been since May 19 when the bill was signed into law.  The PPPDSC will not be moving the primary back from that last Tuesday in January date. Instead, the members are charged with selecting a date in the window between January 3 and March 6 (for the 2012 cycle). Florida could still end up on January 31, but it will only be because it sees a threat to its desired fifth position from a state like Missouri -- should a move to March in the Show Me state prove impossible -- or Minnesota -- where Republican caucuses are currently scheduled for February 7.

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The Post-Arizona Lay of the 2012 Presidential Primary Land

FHQ is glad that the Missouris, Ohios and Wisconsins served as a distraction to the bevy of news items that emerged yesterday concerning the 2012 presidential primary calendar. As has become quite usual, there was an overreaction throughout the political press to the news that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had solidified the Grand Canyon state presidential primary date on February 28. Calls of calendar mania and chaos were rampant, and FHQ might add, completely unwarranted.¹ The simple truth of the matter is that Arizona has been set for -- at the latest -- February 28 since the state legislature there adjourned back in April. After that it was all up to Governor Brewer to decide if the primary would or should be moved to an earlier date. Brewer never had, without the state legislature's help, the ability to move the Arizona presidential primary back.

None of this stopped the anyone from trumpeting the arrival of calendar chaos after the press release announcing Brewer's decision on the primary, nor did the fact that the opposite was actually a more accurate indication of reality. In less than two weeks, we have gone from the possibility of Brewer scheduling the Arizona primary on January 31, creating a scramble to the front, to Brewer leaving the primary on February 28 with the same reaction. It isn't chaos now and it never was. Chaos requires some measure of uncertainty and Arizona on February 28 at the latest has not been uncertain for a while now. As FHQ mentioned in our back of the napkin reactions last night, if anything, this clears up the picture even further. One more piece of the puzzle is in place. Sure, Arizona is now officially non-compliant, will lose half its delegates and shift up by at least a week any and all states that will, want or have the ability to go ahead of it. A week, not a month.

In addition, there are now very few states that can actually still jump on the early and non-compliant bandwagon and have a willingness to do so.

• Florida can. The Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee can schedule the primary in the Sunshine state for any date between January 3 and March 6 and has to do so before October 1, 2011.
• Georgia can. Depending on when the decision is made, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp can schedule the Peach state primary for as early as January 1. If Kemp waits until his December 1 deadline, he will still have the ability to schedule a Tuesday contest for as early as January 31, given the 60 days he is required to give elections officials between the time the decision is made and when the primary is. 
• Michigan can. The year-round state legislative session allows Michigan the latitude to set a date that other states with early and already-adjourned state legislative sessions do not possess. 
• Colorado can. The state Republican Party has the option of shifting its date up, based on state elections law, from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in February. The party's willingness to carry through with such a move is predicated on a calculation of how competitive the GOP nomination race is at both of those points (February 7 vs. March 6).
• The remaining Republican caucus states (Alaska, Maine, North Dakota and Washington) can. To this point, however, not much is known about what the intentions are in each of those states. 
• Wisconsin, Missouri and New Jersey can. But it appears that legislation has very nearly cleared the legislative stage in each and the decision to move out of February is up to the executive branch at this point. That movement is backward, however. The threat from these states, to the extent any exists, is in the governors vetoing the bills and maintaining the status quo.

The reality, then is that while 11 states could break through the March 6 barrier, not all of them will. Missouri, New Jersey and Wisconsin are all pretty safe bets to move back at this point. We don't know enough about the situation in any of the four caucus states to say one way or the other what impact they will, collectively or individually, have on the shape of the final calendar. If Colorado Republicans are going to jump into February contingent upon whether the race has been decided by March, then they are a fairly safe bet to stay where they are. Unless one of the Republican candidates sweeps all of the early contests prior to March, the race for the nomination will still be going strong. Michigan will not hold a primary any earlier than the February 28 date currently called for by state law. If they move, it will be back. The Michigan Republican Party has provided the Republican-controlled legislature with guidelines for setting the date between February 28 and March 6. In other words, Michigan will go no earlier than where Arizona is already scheduled. That would not push the calendar any earlier.

All we are really talking about then is Florida and Georgia. Two states!?! That's your calendar chaos? FHQ would argue that that is not madness. Yes, it keeps the calendar uncertain up to and probably beyond October 1. Yes, it was just two states (Florida and Michigan) that most threatened the calendar in 2008. But what we are witnessing now is not chaos and here's why:

• To the Florida and Michigan point: Part of the problem with the 2012 situation is that people have a tough time not equating what is happening this cycle with the historic nature and course of the previous cycle. There is a tendency to say, "Here we go again" when looking at the development of the 2012 calendar. That is true to a point. But to FHQ's way of thinking, chaos requires at least some element of the unexpected. And while the Republican National Committee did make some changes to their delegate selection rules, they did nothing to prevent what happened in 2008 from happening again. This was completely expected, or should have been. That is different from what happened in 2008. There was no prior precedent of a state or states jumping the window and directly threatening Iowa and New Hampshire in the way that Florida and Michigan did in 2008. That was chaos. What is happening now is not. We know that the four earliest states will simply wait until the others have decided on dates and go earlier than that. To paraphrase Iowa Republican Party Chair Matt Strawn, we may not know the dates yet, but we know the order. The same argument could be made for 2008, but we didn't know -- but probably had a pretty good idea of -- what the Iowa/New Hampshire reaction would be and we didn't know further how the national parties would react to that. Given the 2008 example, then, we have a better idea about what will happen in 2012.
• To the point about calendar uncertainty: This builds on what I just described above. No, we don't know the exact dates, but we do have a pretty good idea of what the order will be. Cry all you would like about the uncertainty, but you know who isn't acting like it is all uncertain? The candidates and their campaigns. FHQ has talked to enough people to know that the campaigns are and have been operating under the assumption that this nomination process would officially kick off sometime in January; not February when the parties would like to see things start. The campaigns are doing what campaigns do: Taking the information they have and formulating a plan. They know the four states that are going first, have a pretty good idea of the next group of states and have an even better idea of when and what states are holding contests on and after March 6. If the campaigns aren't acting as if this is a madhouse process, then is it? FHQ says no.

This is not chaos. There is not, nor will there be increased, frontloading. As we pointed out in our primer at the end of July, there is a sequence to all of this and to this point, it has followed form. Arizona was the first piece of information we expected to get. Dependent upon the information, the next series of states would decide. And that is where we are now: waiting for this sequence to play out and it will for the most part over the next few weeks.

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¹ There was also a "Let the frontloading begin" headline out there. I cannot begin to tell you how misleading, not to mention wrong, that is. There are two elements to the frontloading phenomenon: the front and the load. One is the actual movement forward. We have seen some of this in 2012, but not very much compared to a cycle like 2008. That is the front -- states moving froward. For 2012, most states, as FHQ has mentioned, have complied with the new national party rules and moved back. The other element of frontloading is the compression. This is the loading part. We simply are not seeing the same level of clustering at the beginning of the calendar in 2012 that we have witnessed in past cycles. There is a reason Newsweek ran an article about the potential diminished significance of "Super Tuesday" 2012: there are fewer states scheduled for the earliest allowed date to hold contests, March 6.

What is really in question here is that there are a handful of states challenging the window rule, the rule that exempts Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, but forces all other states into a March-June window. The Floridas, Arizonas, Michigans and Georgias of the world are not forcing any frontloading. They are instead just keeping the final calendar in doubt; the beginning point of it in particular. That is not frontloading. That's something different because while it is pushing up the start of the calendar, it is not bringing along with it the compression of the early parts of calendars in the past. Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina actually have a good amount of January and February real estate to work with to avoid that -- depending on other states' moves -- if they so choose. And they likely will.

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Reactions to Arizona's Potential Primary Move Begin to Surface in Florida: A "Win-Win" Solution?

William March at Tampa Bay Online has a nice rundown of some of the Florida-based reactions to the monkeywrench Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) has thrown into the Sunshine state's effort to schedule the fifth presidential nominating contest. Obviously, Florida's efforts to squeeze a primary into a technically non-compliant, early March date -- March 1, 2 or 3 -- and securing a spot behind Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and just those four states is being complicated by Arizona's potential move to January 31.

That said, the funny thing -- and it is embedded right in the article linked above -- is that Arizona probably should have been viewed as a threat all along. William March correctly identifies the fact that Arizona has a presidential primary scheduled for February 28 and that the governor there is considering moving the primary to January 31.¹ But missing is the very real fact that the legislature in the Grand Canyon state did nothing to address the presidential primary date during its already-adjourned session earlier this year and that essentially locked the state into at the latest that February 28 date.

February 28 is a date that is already ahead of the early March date Florida has been eying for the last several weeks.

To me, that is troubling. The Republican Party of Florida and the RNC should not have been caught off guard by this. Arizona has been sitting out there as a legitimate threat since the legislature adjourned in April. That threat has now grown with Governor Brewer considering a January 31 date for the Arizona primary. But we are all left wondering why it took last week's news to bring the position Arizona was in to the attention of everyone.

FHQ doesn't have an answer. However, it is important to look at the reactions from Florida. First of all, the quote from Brewer's spokesman is worth highlighting:

"It [the Arizona primary date] is not set in stone," Benson said, "but the governor is leaning toward Jan. 31."

That language is consistent with the negotiation angle FHQ speculated about last week; that Brewer was only throwing January 31 out there as an opening offer to get everyone's attention. Attention received, Arizona can negotiate with the RNC and Florida (and Michigan and Georgia, too perhaps) for an advantageous position on the calendar.

And that brings us back to what Florida may do in response to a hypothetical Arizona move to January 31:

In a news conference Wednesday, Florida GOP Chairman Dave Bitner said he and national GOP Chairman Reince Priebus are working to reach a "win-win" solution, but gave no hint what it might be.

"The fact that Arizona might move, I don't think will play a significant role," Bitner said, but didn't explain why.

Let me address that second point first. Arizona won't play a significant role mainly because Florida's Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee has the latitude to schedule the primary as early as January 3. That wouldn't be ideal for Florida given the recent news that the state was attempting to position itself in early March, but Arizona is not a threat to Florida going fifth. That is, as long as the powers-that-be in the Sunshine state are willing to pull the trigger on a move deeper into January.

This win-win solution that the RNC and Florida Republicans are working on is an interesting piece of information. Again, I have no inside knowledge of what is going on, but as FHQ mentioned last week, the RNC does not want any -- or any more -- calendar chaos. The party, furthermore, would probably like to avoid a scenario where Arizona forces the early four states as well as Florida, Arizona, Michigan and maybe Georgia into January. That leaves a big gap between the end of January and when contests are likely to pick back up again in March.

The RNC rules allow the Standing Committee on Rules to tighten the screws on states in violation of the RNC rules on delegates selection (Rule 16.e.3). The committee can go beyond the 50% delegation deduction in an effort to force compliance. And I strongly suspect the national party is utilizing that rule behind closed doors in an attempt to get what they want from Florida, Arizona and any other state that might throw the calendar into disarray. It is the only real weapon the national party has.

I don't want to rehash a previous post, but I do have a theory about what this "win-win solution" might be. In addition to the calendar chaos and February gap the national party may not desire, the list of rogue states wants a place at the table of early contests. If the RNC can broker a calendar between itself and the list of rogue states, the most ideal alignment would look something like this:

Monday, January 9, 2012: Iowa (but see comments below)

Tuesday, January 17: New Hampshire

Tuesday, January 24: South Carolina

Saturday, January 28: Nevada

Tuesday, January 31: Florida

Tuesday, February 7: Colorado

Tuesday, February 14: Arizona

Tuesday, February 21 or 28: Michigan (and maybe Georgia on one of those dates)

No, the RNC does not want primaries and caucuses to begin on January 9, but if that is what it takes to keep the early four states out of 2011 and gives each of the potential rogue states a stand-alone chance to bask in the spotlight of a presidential nomination race, then that is probably the most appropriate course of action. It doesn't mean it won't be a bitter pill for the RNC to swallow and leaves completely up in the air the question of how the rogue states would be treated in terms of the penalties. It would be a dangerous precedent for the party to set if it chose not to penalize those rogue states in some way. However, if the national party is of a mind that they are going to more seriously address the rules for 2016 and fundamentally rewrite them in some way, the RNC may not care.

In any event, the 2012 calendar carousel continues to spin. When it stops or how it is resolved is anyone's guess at this point.

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¹ Governor Brewer can use the power of proclamation to move the date up, and only up, from the fourth Tuesday in February to a more advantageous, earlier position.

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How Does Florida Respond to an Arizona Presidential Primary on January 31?

FHQ got a really good comment loaded with great questions in response to my "what impact will Arizona have on the calendar" post yesterday from regular reader, MysteryPolitico. What the questions and my response highlight is that Florida is still the one state to watch. The legislature, foreseeing this type of potential move from other states, gave the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee the flexibility to absorb a threat such as Arizona to January 31 and still be able to go earlier. The likelihood, then, that Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina shift into December depends almost entirely on what Florida decides to do between now and October 1.

But before I get too far into that let's have a look at MysteryPolitico's comment:

I don't get the sense that Florida is looking to "break" the primary calendar, by which I mean, go so early that Iowa and/or NH are forced into December. Based on past public statements by the politicos in Florida, it seems like the important thing to them is that they go 5th, and they're willing to be "cooperative" on the exact timing.

Thus if Arizona (and possibly other states) move up to Jan. 31, then I figure Florida would probably aim for Jan. 24, but probably no earlier. You'd probably end up with something like this:

Jan. 5 IA
Jan. 10 NH
Jan. 21 NV, SC
Jan. 24 FL
Jan. 31 AZ (+maybe GA and/or MI?)

The scenario in which Iowa is forced into December is the one where Michigan goes earlier than Jan. 31. So I guess the relevant question is when will Michigan show its hand relative to when the other states have to decide? Brewer has to announce a primary date at least 150 days in advance (which means early September if she's aiming for Jan. 31), and Florida has to decide by Oct. 1. What's the likely timeframe for Michigan?

My response:

I'm generally sympathetic to the Florida argument. No, there is absolutely no evidence that anyone in Florida is seeking to move up any further than they have to. In other words, in the doomsday scenario, Florida is more likely to be later than earlier in that January 3-31 window. In fact, I've had a couple of off the record conversations with some well-positioned folks within the party that have indicated to me that there are some institutional/political factors involved that actually bolster this argument.¹ Florida is willing to slightly jostle the boat, but they don't seem to want to rock it. Unless some state, Michigan or Georgia, say, moves to January 10, Florida is not going to go on January 3, definitively pushing the early four states into December.

Now, I had that conversation before the Arizona revelation, but I think the same broad rules apply.

As to the alignment of the calendar, I'm at a point where I feel like a continuation of these sorts of moves is going to draw the ire of the RNC (again, see Rule 16.e.3). We are going to see some push back from the national party at some point. Actually, we may not "see" it since the RNC would very much like to handle this, in my opinion, in-house. To the extent that we hear about a push back from the national party, it seems to me that it will come from folks on the state party level.

That sounds ambiguous, so let me attempt to clear it up by laying out what the national party wants relative to what we're continuing to see from the handful of rogue states. In essence, we're entering a negotiations phase. When we see comments like this one:

"We are currently working with all states and state parties to abide by the rules of the Republican Party to ensure compliance," said Sean Spicer, communications director for the RNC.

...it increasingly, veiled though it may be, looks like two sides -- state parties and national parties -- trying to hammer out a deal. [And no, I don't think this hypothesis finds its root in the ongoing debt negotiations.] The RNC knows quite well that it is not going to get its desired calendar with Iowa kicking the process off on February 6. But the folks there also know that they don't have to sit idly by while a few states wreak havoc on the primary calendar. In fact, it has the means, as long as they ultimately enforce them, to decimate a state's delegation to the national convention. Of course, the RNC doesn't want to do that. The states know this, thus the apparent willingness to defy the rules.

That's why I say this is a negotiation. The RNC has the means to come down hard on the states, but doesn't want to use them. The states, recognizing this, are willing to slightly break the rules but not shatter them completely. The evidence is pretty clear here in both Florida and Michigan. The talk out of Florida lately has been about squeezing a technically non-compliant primary into a March 1-3 window. Similarly, Michigan's Republican Party has set a nearly equivalent, though slightly wider, February 28-March 6 window. Those are both, save the one compliant, March 6 date Michigan is considering, non-compliant, but only just so, relative to the RNC rules on delegate selection.

Obviously, Arizona has thrown a bit of a monkeywrench into the plans in Florida and Michigan much less at the RNC. But I'll go on record as saying that Arizona won't move up to January 31 and doesn't really want to. Why? It's a negotiation. Arizona is only trying to carve out its own spot early on the calendar, and has now submitted its initial offer to the RNC. Now arguably, Arizona already had its own spot early on the primary calendar on February 28. That week between February 28 and March 6, however, is beginning to look, tentatively mind you, compressed enough as to make most of the contests indistinguishable. From a candidate/media attention standpoint, all of those states within that window may as well go on the same date. That's not what Florida and Michigan and now Arizona want. No, they would rather have stand-alone primaries that give them the maximum attention.

It should be noted that the RNC, well, if I was there anyway, should want that too. That's why I think they are working toward this behind closed doors, but also waiting as long as they can -- to let the dust settle as much as possible -- before publicly "acting". If I was in a position at the RNC, and I'm not, the following is what I would be pushing:

Monday, January 9, 2012: Iowa

Tuesday, January 17: New Hampshire

Tuesday, January 24: South Carolina

Saturday, January 28: Nevada

Tuesday, January 31: Florida

Tuesday, February 7: Colorado

Tuesday, February 14: Arizona

Tuesday, February 21 or 28: Michigan

[Other states potentially likely to slip into February: Georgia, Wisconsin, Wyoming]²

Tuesday, March 6: Less-Super Tuesday

Not only does that give each one of the rogue states its own chance at the spotlight -- a week in nearly every case -- but it places on nearly every week a contest. That allows the RNC to avoid any gaps in the calendar like the likely February gap in the MysteryPolitico calendar above or similar to the gap that existed in the 2008 Democratic calendar between Mississippi on March 11 and Pennsylvania on April 22. That was a big hole in the calendar that, while it kept Democrats in the news, it also brought us the "clinging to guns and religion" tangent and the return of Jeremiah Wright. The RNC and the prospective candidates would rather have results in contests to talk about than idle time for opposition research fodder to emerge and dominate the news. That is especially true with an incumbent in the White House. The Republican National Committee doesn't want to afford Obama the opportunity to look and act presidential simultaneous with news being dug up about their own prospective candidates. Now, that is a fine line to tread since the field could be winnowed down to two rather quickly leading to a week-to-week, contest-to-contest sniping fest among the remaining candidates. Contest results, if there are any in that interim, would tend to trump any negative back and forth. At the very least contest results help to frame such exchanges better than in their absence.

As FHQ is apt to do, we have taken a series of questions, slightly answered them and proposed an alternative. The simple truth at this point is that we don't know what the calendar will ultimately look like. What we know is that no one wants the primary calendar to bleed over into 2011. We also know that the early four states and in addition Florida, Michigan, Arizona and maybe Colorado, Georgia, Wisconsin and Wyoming want a crack at early contests and still have the ability to move. Call it a hunch, but I'd bet the RNC also would like to retain some modicum of order to the process and not have a bunch of states compressed in January with a gap in February before March 6 opens the window in which non-exempt states should have been allowed to hold primaries and caucuses according to the rules. Finally, we also know that the RNC has the ability to stiffen the penalties on states if they go really rogue. Sure, that idealistic FHQ proposal above meets those criteria and might even make some sense. But we also know that that probably makes it much less likely that it will become a reality. As I said, if I was at the RNC that would be what I would be advocating now.

NOTE: FHQ began a post on the timeframe for the remaining states to decide on primary/caucus dates yesterday, but decided to wait and see how the events of today impact that before posting. Nonetheless, that post should answer the questions embedded in the final paragraph of MysteryPolitico's comment. Stay tuned. That should be up later today or sometime tomorrow.

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¹ Directly from this conversation, this mainly consists of the idea that the RNC has a check on Florida. And believe it or not, it really doesn't have anything to do with the convention in Tampa. No, instead the national party has some sway in the Florida matter based on the fact that its co-chair, Sharon Day, is from Florida. Does Day have a significant say in where Florida ends up on the calendar? Yes and no. She will not necessarily be involved in the selection of a date for the Florida primary, but being that she aspires to move to positions other co-chair of the national party, Day would be, and indeed is, highly motivated to influence the decision-making there in an effort to save face. Again, this isn't a direct check. It is an indirect one based on someone who is connect to and in the Florida Republican Party political structure.

² Missouri is left off of this list. It will be very difficult for Republican legislators there to vote against a bill to move the primary to March 6 from the governor after already passing such a bill without risking further penalty from the RNC. Though some may like to stick to February 7, I think Missouri Republicans' hands are tied now.

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Members May Not Be Named to Florida Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee Until Late Summer/Early Fall

In a "Whatever happened to that presidential primary committee?" post, Kathleen Haughney of the Orlando Sentinel follows up with Florida Speaker of the House Dean Cannon's spokesperson, Katie Betta. Obviously, not much has been going on or news would have broken by now -- naming the committee members, setting a date, etc. -- on the Florida primary date front. But what Betta had to say about the time frame for the decision-making on the membership alone is fairly telling.

“We are currently monitoring the decisions made by other states with regard to their dates,” said Cannon spokeswoman Katie Betta. “Ultimately, Speaker Cannon supports choosing a date that will allow Florida to remain a relevant player in the process. For him, that requires selecting a date that is both early and unique to Florida. We will have a better picture of what that date might be as other states begin to make their decisions.”

No, that is not entirely newsworthy either. The reason the Florida legislature created the committee in the first place was to maximize the Sunshine state's powers-that-be the ability to set an advantageous (EARLY!) date. No, what was important was something else that came out of the discussion:

A spokeswoman for House Speaker Dean Cannon said the speaker would likely not name anyone to the committee until late summer or early fall.

If this is true, that the members of the committee will not be named until the late summer or early fall, then the committee is going to have to act pretty quickly. At the very latest, early fall is going to the last third of September; only a matter of days before the October 1 deadline by which the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee to set a date. To me that says that the committee phase is more a formality than anything else -- that a decision has already been mostly made and can be made seemingly on the fly prior to October 1. FHQ has certainly been apt to play both sides of this Florida story -- to game the entire world of possibilities in terms of the overall primary calendar. But in my eyes, this lends at least some credence -- that as well as some recent conversations I've had -- to the idea that Florida will indeed try and squeeze a primary into the oft-talked about March 1-3 window. I still say that Arizona and Michigan and maybe even Missouri will have something to say about that.

But then again, that's why Florida is waiting it out until those other states decide. October 1 will likely be late enough for them to achieve that. Well, except for Georgia.

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More from Secretary Kemp on Coupling Georgia's Presidential Primary with Florida's

Joshua Stewart of Georgia Public Broadcast got a few additional comments out of Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp on the issue of the timing of the Peach state's presidential primary next year:

“You sometimes feel like the president is picked in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina and that’s maybe not a general consensus of what the real electorate throughout the country may be thinking,” Kemp said.

...and...

“If there was a way we could have our date the same as theirs, I think it would be attractive for candidates to be able to come and campaign in both these states because you could hit both states in one day [and] we have media markets that overlap,” Kemp said. “There’s just a lot of good synergy.”

The first statement is a throw-away. I'll reiterate what I've said before on this point: the national parties will be the ones to determine whether Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and winnowing the fields "properly" or creating a "general consensus" of which the parties are not supportive. That hasn't happened yet.

Now, the second point is more useful. It is more evidence that Kemp is open to the idea of coupling the Georgia primary with the contest in Florida. The reporting on this has attempted to link the Georgia situation with the recent stories about a brokered March 1 (or 2 or 3) date for the Florida primary. That, I think, doesn't accurately capture the situation. As I've tried to argue, Florida wants the fifth position behind Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, and if other states threaten that, Florida is likely not going to be willing to slip into an early, but only slightly non-compliant March position. If Michigan jumps to January, for instance, Florida isn't necessarily going to sit idly by and accept an early March position while the early four states bump their own contests up.

To be clear, Kemp made his initial comments to Jim Galloway at the AJC in the context of the possibility of a March Florida primary, but that does not mean that Georgia won't go earlier than that. Recall also, that even if Florida has a problem with Georgia holding a primary concurrently with the Sunshine state primary, it won't matter. Florida law requires a decision from the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee by October 1 and Secretary Kemp has an additional two months beyond that (December 1) to make his decision regarding the Georgia primary.

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Where Georgia's Presidential Primary Might End Up

The AJC's Jim Galloway touched base with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp today and chatted about the presidential primary in the state. Their discussion revolved to some extent around the thinking behind the secretary's upcoming decision to set the date of the Peach state's presidential primary. This is certainly a rare glimpse into the date-setting decision-making calculus. The only other secretary of state in a similar position is New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner. And Gardner has typically played it close to the vest, holding out until the last possible threat to New Hampshire's primacy has settled on a date.

Kemp, however, broke with his Granite state counterpart and revealed some of his thoughts on the primary in reacting to recent primary news out of neighboring South Carolina and Florida.

On the possibility that the South Carolina GOP, facing financial constraints, would have to switch from a primary to a caucus, Kemp volunteered to move Georgia into the first-in-the-South primary position according to Galloway.

On Florida being allowed by the RNC to hold a primary in March, but before the allowed March 6 starting point, Kemp basically asked, "Why not Georgia?" This is a possibility that FHQ has speculated on in the past as well.

All told, what does this tell us that we didn't already know? Well, not all that much. The reason Georgia's legislature ceded the power to set the date of the presidential primary over to the secretary of state was to give the state some added flexibility in scheduling the primary; something an early adjourning legislature often prevents. There was some evidence -- circumstantial perhaps -- that Georgia was willing to potentially go rogue on the national parties. But Kemp's comments to Galloway provide us with some concrete evidence that selecting a date outside of the parties' designated window for nominating contests is a possibility in the Peach state.

It should also be noted that South Carolina is not likely to willingly surrender its first-in-the-South status, and though the Republican Party in South Carolina won't have state funds for their primary, they will have a primary and not a caucus. A for the possibility of an early, but out of window March primary in Florida, that possibility will depend on what the feelings in the Sunshine state are to the potential moves in Michigan and Arizona. Regardless, I think aligning the Georgia primary with Florida's is an attractive option to Kemp. What remains to be seen is whether Florida's Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee is amendable to the idea. They may be out of luck though. The deadline for the committee in Florida to select a date is October 1. Kemp has until December 1 with the decision in Georgia.

Again, we now have an idea that Georgia is willing to join the early, but rogue group of primary states.

NOTE: Please note that Galloway incorrectly identifies the date of the South Carolina primary as January 28. That is not the date of the primary. The DNC set aside February 28 as the date of the South Carolina Democratic primary, but Republicans in South Carolina don't have to hold a primary on the same date as the Democrats. The RNC rules just specify that a South Carolina primary can take place in February some time, without setting a specific date.

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More Talk of a Non-Tuesday Presidential Primary in Florida

One thing that made it around political circles on the internet Monday was the rehashing of a story from three weeks ago that came out of some questions to and comments from RNC chair, Reince Priebus about the scheduling of the Florida presidential primary. The basic premise is that Florida would hold a primary in early March -- according to Andrew Smith in early June, it was Thursday, March 1 -- but before the window period begins for other non-exempt states on Tuesday, March 6. The theory goes that Florida can somehow avoid the full brunt of the RNC penalties if the Sunshine state primary is scheduled in a way that leaves Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to hold their contests throughout February as planned with Florida carving out a niche between those contests and the other states.

As theories go, this isn't a horrible one. But there are gaps in it that should be addressed. First of all, it has focused on the wrong players. Obviously, Chairman Priebus should technically have some say in the matter. He does have a small amount of leeway in terms of the doling out the sanctions on a non-compliant Florida delegation, but ultimately that may not be enough to get the powers-that-be in Florida to act in accordance with the national party's delegate selection rules. The latest round in the this story has focused on statements by Florida Republican Party chair, David Bitner. Again, like Priebus, Bitner has no real say in the matter. He, all along, has maintained that he wants Florida to be compliant and to preserve its full delegation, while having no real power to move the legislature and now the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee to do what he wants as state party chair. Of Governor Scott, Speaker Cannon and President Haridopolos -- the men entrusted with staffing the committee -- the latter two have been quite outspoken in their "Florida will be early and have an influence over the Republican nomination at all costs" stance.

And that leads to the second area where there are holes in this early March theory. If Florida is going to claim its position as the fifth state they may have to deal with Michigan, Arizona and to a much lesser degree, Minnesota for that role. The way this is being reported, Florida can slide into a spot between the early states and everyone else and all will be mostly right with the world. But if actors in Florida mean business about being fifth, then Michigan and Arizona stand in the way of that coming to fruition. There have been rumblings of Michigan moving to January (and legislation has been proposed in the legislature to that end) and Arizona is locked into February 28 at the latest. Those are both dates that would be ahead of that early, non-Tuesday March contest, Florida is supposedly eying. FHQ has heard enough from Haridopolos and Cannon to convince us that those states pushing ahead of Florida will not stand. That, in turn, means that Florida moving even earlier in their first Tuesday in January to first Tuesday in March window becomes much more likely.

Obviously, that has implications for where the first four states will end up on the calendar as well. And around and around we go...

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In Florida, Some Chatter Behind the Idea of a Thursday Presidential Primary

This is technically old news, but it is something that quietly came out of some comments that RNC Chair, Reince Priebus, made earlier in June. That was on the cusp of FHQ's mid-June break and thus slipped through the cracks. Yet, it is still something that warrants some discussion.

According to Adam Smith, political director at The St. Petersburg Times on the paper's political blog, The Buzz, one idea that has been talked about to some degree in Florida to help the Sunshine state potentially avoid sanction from the RNC is to hold a Thursday, March 1 presidential primary.

Republican leaders (Democrats have no say) are determined to be the fifth contest (after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) and not bunched up with a bunch of other states. One idea we've heard lately is March 1 - a Thursday - which might enable Florida to comply with the RNC, avoid penalties, and perhaps also avoid sharing the stage with other states.

We wouldn't bet any money on that though. The study committee appeared aimed mainly at taking the pressure off the RNC and buying some time before causing the nominating calendar to implode. A February primary in Florida still seems like a [sic] strong possibility.

FHQ agrees with Smith that a February primary is still the most likely outcome at this point, but the Thursday idea is intriguing (an idea that came out of earlier discussions in Georgia as well). In fact, we have speculated here that Georgia might try and piggyback on Florida's date, forcing a subregional primary just outside of the window in which the parties allow non-exempt states to hold primaries and caucuses.

One thing that should be made crystal clear here is that a March 1 primary will not help Florida avoid penalties from the RNC unless the RNC opts to bend its rules slightly (something Priebus said would not happen in his comments in early June). All contests other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina must fall on a day on or after the first Tuesday in March (March 6). A Thursday primary would help Florida to avoid infringing on the early states' turf, but it would not bring the state into compliance with the national party rules.

Florida's Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee's decision will be determined to a great extent by what happens with the primaries in Arizona and Michigan. Arizona is seemingly locked on at least February 28 and Michigan Republicans will decide in August on when and how to allocate their delegates. If Michigan jumps into January, that will likely keep Florida there as well.

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The Big Advantage New Hampshire Has Over Florida on Primary Scheduling

Basically, it can be summed up in one simple explanation: New Hampshire has done it before.

More and more Florida elections officials are expressing concern over newly-passed elections law in the state, but more to the point, the uncertainty surrounding the scheduling of the Sunshine state's presidential primary (via Aaron Deslatte at the Orlando Sentinel's Central Florida Political Pulse Blog):

Indian River Elections Supervisor Leslie Swan has qualms about the elections reform Gov. Rick Scott signed into law last month – specifically, the provision that creates a new commission and gives its members until October to set the date for the state’s presidential primary.

Swan said in a press release Wednesday that the timing might not give county election supervisors enough time to train poll workers and choose voting locations.

“The uncertainty of the exact date for the Presidential Preference Primary Election really leaves our office in a difficult position as far as scheduling training for our poll workers and securing polling locations,” Swan said.

“We are hoping for a decision prior to the October 1, 2011 deadline in order to prepare for this election.”

The Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee (PPPDSC) was created to provide Florida with the flexibility to set the date of their primary outside of the confines of the early state legislative session. The byproduct of this, however, is that the burden has been shifted from a state legislature having to act within a very small window of time to local elections officials having to prepare for a primary election in an unknown period of time. If the PPPDSC waits until the October 1 deadline to set a date and chooses the earliest possible date -- January 3 -- that would leave elections officials in Florida just three months to prepare.

Is that enough time? Who knows? Florida has never been in this position before. Well, Florida elections administrators haven't anyway. It should be noted that there was plenty of uncertainty surrounding the Florida primary in 2008; not the date so much, but whether it would be held and/or whether it would count. Of course, the state had that January 2008 primary in place as of May 2007 and acted as if there were no problems (The state was and is Republican-controlled and all the attention to Florida in 2008 was on the Democratic side in terms of the penalties for holding an early, pre-window primary.). Elections officials had time, in other words. In 2012, they will not have as much warning/preparation time.

Things operate slightly differently in New Hampshire. The scheduling flexibility is there as well with the decision resting in the hands of the secretary of state (Only current secretary of state, Bill Gardner (D) has ever held the date-designating power since the transition from state legislative control over that decision before the 1976 primary.). But New Hampshire has done this before. And though local elections officials were wary of having to prepare for a primary with an unknown date as late as November 2007 -- a primary that was rumored to potentially take place in mid-December of that year -- they were still confident that they could pull it off with as little notice as a week or two.

Granted, Gardner waited until the eve of Thanksgiving to choose the date for the 2008 primary in 2007, so waiting Florida out until October 1 at the latest will be comparatively easy in 2011 relative to 2007.¹ Still, even absent that previous experience, New Hampshire has added flexibility in setting a date than Florida does. This may not be a big item now, but as the fall rolls around, we may start hearing more about it.

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¹ Georgia's new December 1 deadline for its secretary of state to select a presidential primary may be more problematic to Gardner and New Hampshire.

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