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New Hampshire Primary Set For January 8, 2008

November 21, 2007

New Hampshire has finally set the date for its primaries: it's January 8, 2008 which is the earliest the primaries have ever been held in the state.

Iowa's nominating contest on January 3 and New Hampshire's primary kick off state-by-state battles to winnow out losers and elevate a select few candidates to move ahead and seek their parties' presidential nominations. "It's earlier than we had imagined not too long ago, but first and foremost we are going to preserve the New Hampshire primary and this will let us do that," New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner told a news conference.

For more than half a century, running for the White House has meant romancing voters in New Hampshire, shaking hands and flipping burgers in hole-in-the-wall diners, in the hope that winning the state will spark a surge of publicity to secure the nomination in other states. But a shake-up in the nominating calendar means the January 8 primary is the earliest in the history of New Hampshire, which has held the first primary in every presidential campaign since 1920.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton leads the race for the Democratic nomination in the state, according to recent polls, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads among likely Republican voters. Both New Hampshire and Iowa have faced complaints that the mostly white and rural states do not offer a representative test for candidates, and that more racially and economically diverse states should play a bigger role.

The January 8th date puts the New Hampshire primary five days after the Iowa caucuses, which is the usual sequence of events. Michigan will most likely have its primary on January 15, 2008. All of this jockeying for position by the states is having a major effect on the next presidential election. For one thing, we are moving closer and closer to a national primary. Another effect is that voters are being forced to watch over a year of debates as the candidates desperately try to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

The battle over which state gets to hold its primary first has reached absurd levels -- at one point New Hampshire was threatening to hold a December primary, just so it could be first. Perhaps envisioning furious voters staying home from the primaries in droves, cooler heads prevailed in The Granite State.

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