Mich. to Make January Primary Calender Even Tighter

Move could push early states like Iowa and N.H. to earlier votes.

ByABC News
January 8, 2009, 1:03 AM

Aug. 21, 2007 — -- Lawmakers in Michigan are set to disrupt a delicate balance surrounding the presidential nominating calendar, with a vote likely this week that would place the state's primary on Jan. 15 or even earlier -- in the middle of a window that had been set aside for four early-voting states.

Michigan's move is expected to prompt at least Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to move their nominating contests even earlier in January -- setting off a chaotic chain reaction that squeeze the Iowa caucuses into by far the earliest date in their history.

The shifting calendar is complicating the campaigns of all the presidential candidates, who are trying to strategize about how to win what will be the earliest primaries and caucuses in history -- even as more large states play major roles and states try to leapfrog each other in the process.

The chaos could hasten the end of the traditional system whereby the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are followed by a blizzard of voting in other states.

"It's a meltdown," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's campaign in 2000 and now helps the Democratic National Committee try to determine the voting calendar.

"It's tough for the candidates and the campaigns to figure out how to deploy resources," Brazile said. "They have to figure out how to secure enough delegates to win. And now all of these states are shuffling dates, triggering all sorts of alarm bells, and we could have voters making their decisions in December 2007."

The shifting of dates has provoked a backlash. The Democratic and Republican parties are trying to reassert control of the primary calendars on behalf of their candidates, starting with a Democratic National Committee meeting Saturday that will consider ways to punish states that are violating the schedule set by the party.

Still, there's little the national parties can do to control when states hold primaries, since each state can hold such elections whenever it wants to. And even before Michigan moves its date, the calendar was shaken up by the maneuvering of dozens of states that want a bigger role earlier in the process.