I quietly stumbled across this little bit of potentially significant news last night.
“California's GOP governor, sworn in last week for a second term, still plans on influencing the 2008 election. Schwarzenegger says he'd like to move the California primary from June—when both parties have all but picked their nominees—to a much earlier date, in February.”
I don’t doubt that this will happen. My only question here is why hasn’t California pushed for this sooner?
“The governor hopes the change will encourage candidates to spend more time talking to voters in the nation's most populous state… Moving up the primary certainly increases California's visibility among candidates—and puts the Golden State's environmental concerns on the agenda.”
This is precisely what will happen. Having California move its primary means that Californian values and politics will enjoy a much greater degree of influence in shaping the national debate. This is potentially a very big deal.
“Adding liberal California to the early mix would probably affect the nominating process by favoring big-money, big-name candidates such as Hillary Clinton and John McCain.”
Perhaps, but more importantly, if would help favor more progressive politics and that certainly isn’t Hillary or John. However, no matter the front runner, they would presumably have to change their national strategy, thus most candidates would move to the left. I'll be following this one closely.
