South Carolina Confirms Earlier Date for GOP Primary
At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Las Vegas, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton defended her health-care views.
(By Jae C. Hong -- Associated Press)
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South Carolina Confirms Earlier Date for GOP Primary
South Carolina's Republican Party confirmed yesterday that it is moving its 2008 presidential primary forward to Jan. 19, a decision that party Chairman Katon Dawson announced in a joint appearance in Concord, N.H., with New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner. Under New Hampshire law, Gardner must set his state's primary, currently scheduled for Jan. 22, at least a week before any other.
"We are here to stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in New Hampshire to reaffirm the important role that both of our states play in presidential politics," Dawson said.
Shoulder to shoulder with Gardner, Dawson won his moment in the political limelight by shifting his state's GOP primary two weeks earlier than it had been scheduled. But in doing so, he may have put the entire tradition of the presidential nominating system at risk.
South Carolina's move is almost certain to trigger other changes in the calendar if New Hampshire feels crowded and moves its vote to early January, and if Iowa feels crowded by New Hampshire and moves its caucuses into December.
Had Dawson selected Jan. 22, rather than Jan. 19, for the GOP primary, he might have given officials in New Hampshire and Iowa more flexibility to keep the nominating process within calendar year 2008, but that now seems unlikely. Discussions over the past few months with political leaders in the early-voting states suggest there is great reluctance to force the opening event of the 2008 nominating process into December 2007.
The system already was in stress. Now there is every possibility for a public backlash -- if not in the individual states, then collectively -- with a conclusion that the system has broken down.
-- Dan Balz and Michael D. Shear
TO USE OR NOT TO USE
Clinton Ruled Out Nukes Against Iran in '06 Interview
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has implicitly admonished Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But in a 2006 interview during her Senate reelection campaign, Clinton ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran -- albeit in a specific situation that was being publicly discussed. After a New Yorker article raised the possibility that the Bush administration would strike Iran, Clinton said she would "certainly take nuclear weapons off the table."
