This has been an amazingly confusing primary season and now the latest from South Carolina:

South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Katon Dawson will announce that he is moving its primary date ahead of Florida’s Jan. 29 vote, to reclaim his state party’s “first in the South” presidential-nominating banner. But he will do so in New Hampshire, home of the first-in-the-nation primary. And he will be joined by New Hampshire’s longtime Secretary of State Bill Gardner, who alone has the power to set that state’s date for both parties, now tentatively Jan. 22.

If both were to move their dates up, that likely would force Iowa — always protective of its party caucuses as the first nominating contests of any kind — to consider moving its date from next Jan. 14 into pre-Christmas December.

According to the Cincinnati Enquirer the Ohio State Senate is considering a move of their primary to Jan. 29 in 2008 potentially sharing a date with Florida.

To Jan. 29th, a week after the first primary in New Hampshire and a week before the giant Feb. 5th primary date that will include New York & California. This means Florida will play a very large roll in the primary season.

The straw poll in Ames, Iowa will be missing two candidates this year as the Giuliani & McCain camps say they will skip the event. Incase you are wondering a straw poll is an informal type of opinion poll, it is not binding but the Iowa ritual has been a staple for Republicans every four years (except in the case of an incumbent President) since 1979.

The event is seen as an early “test of strength” in Iowa and is usually covered as an overall test of strength of candidates by the media.

The Giuliani campaign cited the expense (estimated at around $3 million +) and the movement of primaries in large states as the reason the candidate won’t participate.

To win the straw poll candidates must purchase the tickets of those who attend. Essentially a campaign buys a $30 ticket for someone in Iowa to attend and in return they receive a vote. Hence the cost. But in addition the campaigns also pay for transportation and then pamper these individuals. It is used as a fundraiser for the Iowa caucuses to be held in January of 2008.

From the article:

“The straw poll actually could in fact take away Iowa’s significance, if we’re not careful,” Mr. Nussle (former Iowa Representative) told reporters. “It’s not a serious event in the grand scheme of picking a nominee. And at this time in our history, with the war on terror and economic challenges facing our country, we need to have a serious conversation about our nominee and not just have, you know, these kind of fund-raising straw polls.”

No its not 2000 election redux, it could well be the decision of the Democratic Party. You see every election cycle the DNC lays out primary schedule. This year many states looked to move their primary up. Florida chose to move its primary all the way up to January. This got the party mad! Hopping mad!

So as penalty the DNC might well let Florida hold the primary but make it non-binding. Instead, party leaders may well pick who Florida’s 200 delegates goto. Why? I have no idea why in the world someone would do it that way but its what they are considering.

Here in New York you must be enrolled in a party to vote in the primaries so I never get the chance to be involved in the process. I will say that even my geeky butt probably wouldn’t turn out to vote if I knew it had no impact.