The most over-used phrase of the morning has to be “Three States, Three Winners”. Not to mention that it fails to tell the whole story.
Poor Wyoming. Just 10 days ago they held their Republican Caucus, where Mitt Romney picked up his first victory. The state took a risk by sandwiching their contest right between Iowa and New Hampshire, moving it up nearly four months earlier from the date it was held in early May of 2004.
The idea was that the state would see more visits from candidates, and thus have a greater role in the process of selecting the party nominee. According to the Denver Post, not only did Romney make a handful of trips to the state, but “Duncan Hunter, Ron Paul and Fred Thompson also made appearances in the state since September.”(click here for Denver Post story)
The date change did not come without a cost, however. The national Republican Party took away 14 of the states 28 delegates.
To add insult to injury, the move does not seem to have had the effect some had hoped. A story from late November on NPR predicted that the effects would last less than a year.(click here for NPR story) Apparently, the shelf-life of this particular change was far less than that. I remember watching the national news on a network the evening of the caucus, and it was not even the lead story.
So was it worth it? Do you wish that Kansas or Missouri would have eschewed party wishes and stepped on the toes of the traditional primary and caucus dates? Would either of those states have pulled enough weight to make the change worth the cost?
Christian Dashiell – Midwest Voices 2008
