The 2008 presidential campaign strategists must be very mindful in allocating resources with front-loaded primaries and an ever-changing calendar. It got more complicated today as South Carolina Republicans moved up their balloting, making December voting elsewhere a possibility.
South Carolina Republicans have now officially moved their primary up to Jan. 19 from Feb. 2. They made the announcement today in New Hampshire, of all places, a move that will inevitably increase the pressure on Iowa to push up its caucuses to December.This compressed early schedule means “you have to work harder than you ever have worked in your life,” said Howard Wolfson, a top adviser to Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. “You’ve got to do everything you can to meet as many people as possible.”
There is a good deal of speculation that Iowa officials, who are determined to defend the influence of their
first-in-the-nation vote, could set a date in December. That would mean that the process of selecting delegates to the Democratic and Republican national conventions of 2008 could begin before Christmas 2007.
The bottom line is an unsettling one: Speeding up the process speeds up the prospect that status-quo contenders will secure the nominations of both major parties
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