Florida has now made official [3] what they telegraphed for some time, that they're moving their primary up to Tuesday, January 29th. In other words, they didn't want to be in w/the rest of the schmos on February 5th with the uber-national primary...nooooosireee. They're moving in on Palmetto state turf.
All these moves by these various state governments to move their primaries up to catch a bigger share of the limelight (which with so many doing it is self-defeating) makes one wonder if they have paid any attention whatsoever to just WHO gets to set such dates in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In the first two their respective secretaries of state have that power.
Here in South Carolina, the political parties run the presidential primaries...and the state committees of each of the two parties can change their dates on a whim. And for the GOP's part, the state committee voted last year to give the State Chairman that authority...which means Katon Dawson can (and will) sit back with his arms folded and wait for all this jockeying foolishness to get over with and then politely inform everyone that our primary will be held ahead of theirs anyway.
Again, you'd think that these jokers would know that.
