By IPS Correspondents
TAMPA, Florida, May 21 2007 (IPS)

Florida’s declaration that the state will set its primary vote for next January, a week earlier than the rest of the country, has created a cascade of problems for the other 49 states gearing up for the U.S. presidential elections in November 2008.

When the Florida Legislature recently designated Jan. 29, 2008 as the date for the state’s primary, in which voters select the various parties’ candidates, it was in direct violation of rules set by both the Democratic and Republican National Committees.

Both the DNC and RNC have threatened to cut in half the number of delegates that Florida can send to the Democratic and Republication national conventions in 2008. Both parties have formally told the state’s Democratic and Republican chairpersons that holding a primary before Feb. 5, 2008 is disallowed.

Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist could veto the measure when the state legislature meets in special session in June, but is not expected to do so.

Political movers and shakers across the country are now jockeying for position to make their respective states’ primaries the focus of the United States and the world.

In South Carolina, state Democratic and Republican leaders had sought to make the state the first in the South to hold a primary, a plan now scuttled by the actions of the Florida Legislature. If South Carolina retaliates by scheduling its primary even earlier, this move, in turn, would directly affect the state of New Hampshire, whose Secretary of State Bill Gardner has told reporters that he will enforce that state’s law proclaiming it must hold the first primary in the United States.

“We’re trying to work with the (Florida) state party as much as possible. But we do have the DNC rules and we will enforce them,” said Stacie Paxton, the party’s press secretary.

Likewise, Amber Wilkerson, an RNC spokesperson, told IPS that, “At this point, our rules are pretty straightforward and they were voted on at our last RNC convention. The chairman of the RNC is going to uphold the rules.”

As it happens, the chairman of the RNC is Mel Martinez – one of Florida’s two senators.

Wilkerson insisted that “there is no conflict of interest between Senator Martinez as head of the RNC and his position as a U.S. senator.” A spokesperson in Sen. Martinez’s office referred an IPS request for comment to the RNC, saying that “we here don’t comment on national party matters.”

For the Democratic presidential hopefuls, the flap has thrown their campaign strategies into disarray. DNC chairman Howard Dean has warned that any state primary held before Feb. 5, 2008 could be considered non-binding, although most analysts think this is an empty threat.

“We believe that this discussion is a political discussion,” said Sandy Wayland, president of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, a non-partisan, pro-voting rights group. “This is to showcase Florida politicians – it gives them a national platform. Right now, this is self-promotion. This is a presidential election and when the circus comes to town, they want their names out there in the newspapers and their faces on the television screens.”

According to the latest polls, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are leading in the Democratic column, while former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain are most popular among Republicans.

Anthony Corrado Jr., a professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and an expert on U.S. presidential elections, told IPS that the dispute is having a clear effect of speeding up the pace and intensity of the campaigning.

“We’ve had a Democratic debate and two Republican debates and it’s not even Memorial Day yet,” he said, referring to the federal holiday observed this year on May 28, considered an unofficial campaign kick-off date. “All of this is going to force the candidates to raise more money, as they will have to do more television advertising and that is expensive.”

Various solutions to the mayhem are under discussion. One proposal would create regional blocs that rotate their primary schedules during election cycles. Another would have various states vote first on an alternating basis. A third option, which Sen. Martinez supports, is to have a national primary day, on which all 50 states would vote simultaneously.

“(A national primary day) is an interesting alternative, but the question is how would this empower candidates,” offered Dr. Toby Moore, project manager for the Commission on Election Reform based at American University in Washington.

“I don’t know the answer to that question. But both (Democratic and Republican national and state office leaders) are very badly fractured. It’s headed for the cliff; it’s going to become absurd. The candidates are going to have to campaign earlier and earlier. But the biggest danger is that people don’t focus on the election until it’s too late.”

It should be noted that Florida’s attempt to slate of its primary ahead of other states does not automatically equate to large numbers of people actually voting. In 2006, the last congressional election year, only 46.4 percent of the Florida electorate turned out at the polls.

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