Source:  Meng Bomin – News and views

via Ben Smith

It appears that the four states for which the Four-State Pledge is named (Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, and South Carolina) have started to move toward an agreed-upon alternate calendar first reported by Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic, which is as such:

January 5 – Iowa caucuses, Wyoming GOP convention
January 8 – New Hampshire primary
January 12 – Nevada caucuses
January 15 – Michigan primary*
January 19 – South Carolina primary
January 29 – Florida primary*

(Article continues.)

*The delegates from Michigan and Florida are officially prohibited from casting their votes at the Democratic National Convention thus making the primary in Ambinder’s words a “beauty contest” for the Democrats.  All the states above will only be able to seat half their normal delegation in the Republican National Convention.

It seems that this is what will happen, as the Nevada Democratic Party has announced the move, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  It appears that Iowa will wait for New Hampshire’s move before implementing theirs, but should things go according to plan, that will be the early state schedule.

Obviously, this is still less than ideal from a retail politics point of view, as Michigan’s vote comes before South Carolina’s and there isn’t much time for the momentum from those early elections to sink in and influence later results.  However, I think it’s the best they could do.

Hopefully a completely redone calendar is put forth by both parties at next year’s conventions.

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