GOP Officials: Iowa Caucus Vote Could Move Earlier, Even to 2011

By Hannah Hess
IowaPolitics.com

Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses are tentatively scheduled for Feb. 6, but Iowans could instead be voting two weeks after Thanksgiving if other states shake up the calendar.

"It's all dependent on what other states do," said former Iowa GOP Chairman Brian Kennedy, a member of the Republican National Committee, who helped set the national caucus and primary calendar.

"Iowa's law provides that it will be the first nomination contest, and the state Republican Central Committee has sole discretion on when to set that date," Kennedy said. "So, if it's necessary to move the date up to respond to other states moving their dates, Iowa would have to do so."

Some political observers predict that the shakeups could result in a primary and caucus season that begins in early December. Josh Putnam, an assistant political science professor at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., researches and blogs about calendar developments at the site Frontloading HQ.

Putnam predicts Dec. 6, the first Tuesday of the month, could become the new date. Iowa Republicans, including Kennedy, agreed the date is plausible.

But Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn told IowaPolitics.com that he remains "cautiously optimistic" that the party-sanctioned calendar, in which no caucus or primary will be held until February, will hold.

The Republican National Committee in August 2010 adopted rules to keep Iowa first in the 2012 presidential nominating process, followed by contests in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Other states are required to hold off their contests until "Super Tuesday" on March 6, when 10 contests are tentatively scheduled. But at least three states — Florida, Arizona and Michigan — are jockeying to defy those rules by vaulting their contests earlier on the calendar.

All three states are angling for earlier dates, while others are hinting that they would like a slice of the early action.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer caused a stir last week when she announced she wanted to push the date forward to draw more attention to her state. Florida remains adamant about hosting the fifth contest after the early states, and has established an official 10-person commission to set a date. Republican leaders of Michigan's state legislature have been given authority to schedule its primary between Feb. 28 and March 6.

The states have about three weeks to pencil in their dates or be slapped with penalties, Strawn said. If the states are not in compliance by Oct. 1, their delegates to the Republican National Convention will be sliced in half. A reduced presence at the late-August meeting in Tampa, Fla., means less influence in selecting the nominee.

Jockeying with the calendar could also effect the quality of the nominee who emerges, Iowa Republicans say.

"The reason why you have the four carve-out states is so that you have an environment for candidates to be able to do retail politics," said Republican National Committeewoman Kim Lehman, who said candidates have the opportunity to build grassroots momentum in Iowa.

The national committee designed the rules to make early contests in February and March proportional, so that multiple candidates win a share of each state's delegates. In April and beyond, the primaries and caucuses are winner-take-all contests to accelerate the winnowing of the field.

"The front-loading process is, in effect, turning the contest into a national primary ... and we don't think that's healthy for the process," Kennedy said. "More elongated process gives folks the chance to see the candidates, and respond to the field as time goes on — see how the candidates respond to political victories, as well as setbacks."

Kennedy said the fierce competition between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the 2008 contest showed how a longer nomination process could help temper the candidate, forcing them to campaign hard in each state.

"It allows the lesser-known candidates to compete. Those who maybe don't start with high name I.D. or great financial resources have the chance to get to be known and demonstrate that they've got some electoral appeal in the early states," said Kennedy, who steers former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Iowa campaign. "A national primary benefits the candidates who start famous and have a lot of money."

Strawn also has served as a strong defender of Iowa's first-in-the-nation status.

"Our process rewards personal interaction, not 30-second television attack advertisements," Strawn said of Iowa's retail politics. "Our process places candidates in front of dozens of voters in our coffee shops and on our family farms, not on a stage speaking to thousands."

"There are those who wish to silence this grassroots-oriented process by attempting to marginalize Iowa voters or move to a more national-style presidential primary election," he said. "Such moves only exacerbate the divide between voters and the future president of the United States and would render the Republican and Democrat presidential nomination processes as merely fundraising contests."