Official West Virginia Democratic Primary Discussion Thread...

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Obama tends to like to roll out big endorsements after primaries. Who will it be this time?

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Donna Brazille on CNN, perpetuating the myth that every state except FL & MI complied with the DNC calendar rules....no mention of IA & NH's rulebreaking.

IA & NH both applied for waivers to the DNC and received them.

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Donna Brazille on CNN, perpetuating the myth that every state except FL & MI complied with the DNC calendar rules....no mention of IA & NH's rulebreaking.

IA & NH both applied for waivers to the DNC and received them.

Yes, but only *after* they'd already moved their contests.  They moved to Jan. 3rd and Jan. 8th respectively, which was earlier than the DNC allowed (the original DNC calendar said they could go on Jan. 14th and Jan. 22nd respectively), and said "We don't care what the DNC says, we're going to vote on Jan. 3 and 8 no matter what."  The DNC gave them a pass in December 2007, after their dates were already locked in.

Formally the DNC didn't give them a pass until December, but informally, both states had consulted with Dean before making their moves and it was widely understood that they'd be given the pass. Florida was the first to make a move on May 3, and, in order to forestall a chaotic rush, the Rules Committee decided to set an example with Florida.

When Michigan followed in August, they had no choice but to do the same. New Hampshire's constitution requires that its primary be at least one week before any other primary. Therefore they legally had no choice but to move 1 week prior to Michigan to Jan. 8. After consultations with the DNC both NH and IA were allowed to move.

I used to think Dean behaved unfairly, but now I'm not so sure. Which state moved first-- New Hampshire or Michigan?

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Formally the DNC didn't give them a pass until December, but informally, both states had consulted with Dean before making their moves and it was widely understood that they'd be given the pass. Florida was the first to make a move on May 3, and, in order to forestall a chaotic rush, the Rules Committee decided to set an example with Florida.

When Michigan followed in August, they had no choice but to do the same. New Hampshire's constitution requires that its primary be at least one week before any other primary. Therefore they legally had no choice but to move 1 week prior to Michigan to Jan. 8. After consultations with the DNC both NH and IA were allowed to move.

I used to think Dean behaved unfairly, but now I'm not so sure. Which state moved first-- New Hampshire or Michigan?

You have something of a point in the case of Iowa.  But with NH, they said from day 1 that they were going to violate the DNC calendar, as they would never agree to voting after Nevada.  True, they didn't formally select their date until after Michigan did, but they said many times before that that they were going to vote earlier than Jan. 22nd, no matter what the DNC said.  In fact, Michigan used this to justify their own actions.  They said "Well, NH says they're going to break the rules, so why shouldn't we?"

Go reread this thread, in which you agreed with me on this point:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=72920.30

Yeah, but that was before I knew about the waivers. Reading Jake's post again, I'm not sure how New Hampshire had committed to violating the rules before the Michigan move. All I could find is quotes indicating that they would caveat themselves from abiding by the rules if other states moved their primaries to within 1 week of theirs. In short, they had agreed only conditionally:

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So I guess I'm still unclear on the Michigan excuse. It seems they were saying "We'll go ahead and break the rules because New Hampshire has caveated themselves from following them in the case that following them becomes contradictory to their preestablished state law... which only happens if we move to Jan. 15" Seems like a narrow reed to hang your move on, but perhaps there's more that I'm unaware of.

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I overestimated Obama's "presumptive nominee" bounce as well. But most of all underestimated Edwards.

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Donna Brazille on CNN, perpetuating the myth that every state except FL & MI complied with the DNC calendar rules....no mention of IA & NH's rulebreaking.

IA & NH both applied for waivers to the DNC and received them.

Yes, but only *after* they'd already moved their contests.  They moved to Jan. 3rd and Jan. 8th respectively, which was earlier than the DNC allowed (the original DNC calendar said they could go on Jan. 14th and Jan. 22nd respectively), and said "We don't care what the DNC says, we're going to vote on Jan. 3 and 8 no matter what."  The DNC gave them a pass in December 2007, after their dates were already locked in.

Formally the DNC didn't give them a pass until December, but informally, both states had consulted with Dean before making their moves and it was widely understood that they'd be given the pass. Florida was the first to make a move on May 3, and, in order to forestall a chaotic rush, the Rules Committee decided to set an example with Florida.

When Michigan followed in August, they had no choice but to do the same. New Hampshire's constitution requires that its primary be at least one week before any other primary. Therefore they legally had no choice but to move 1 week prior to Michigan to Jan. 8. After consultations with the DNC both NH and IA were allowed to move.

I used to think Dean behaved unfairly, but now I'm not so sure. Which state moved first-- New Hampshire or Michigan?

You wouldn't happen to know which section of the NH constitution?

All I could find was a state law (which was updated in June 2007 to permit the SOS to set a non-Tuesday date for the election).

The actual law says that the primary will be held coincident with Spring town meetings in March - which may well be a constitutional provision, except it can be moved earlier to cut in front of any other State.

I was wrong about this apparently... yes, it is state law.