Kudos to the 'rats for pissing off New Hampshire!! :) This'll really make it easy going for them in New England. Not. :)
Posted on 08/20/2006 8:08:18 AM PDT by billorites
Secretary of State William Gardner said he will choose when New Hampshire Democrats vote for their Presidential candidates -- not the Democratic National Committee, which yesterday ordered the state to share more of the nominating spotlight in 2008.
"As chairman of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean is not going to pick the date of the New Hampshire primary," Gardner told the New Hampshire Sunday News.
Democrats in Chicago approved a calendar calling for New Hampshire to retain its first-in-the nation primary with residents casting votes Jan. 22, three days after Nevada would conduct its caucuses.
"The primary's going to be held on a date that honors our tradition and the action taken by the DNC dishonors that tradition," Gardner said.
He said the "tradition" means Iowa and New Hampshire kicking off the nominating process. Gardner plans to wait until late next year to set the actual primary date.
New Hampshire law requires the primary to be held at least seven days ahead of any "similar election." The law is not subject to any party rule.
The Democratic gathering also approved imposing penalties for candidates who compete in states that violate the national party's calendar. Candidates would lose delegates from those states.
Gov. John Lynch said he has written commitments from 10 likely or potential Presidential candidates promising to campaign in New Hampshire regardless of the date. No one asked has turned him down.
"What a group of party insiders did to our primary is deplorable. The DNC did not give us our primary and they are not going to take it away," Lynch said at the annual Merrimack County Democrats' summer barbecue in Bow.
"The DNC's vote really doesn't matter. The New Hampshire primary is already under way. The New Hampshire primary is here to stay and stay forever," he said.
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, one of those assuring Lynch, attended the same barbecue.
"New Hampshire voters have earned the right to have the first primary and I intend to campaign in New Hampshire whatever date is set," Warner said.
"The voters of American have validated the New Hampshire primary over the years. I've said from the outset that New Hampshire and Iowa have earned the right to put the Presidential candidates through their hustings."
Tom Rath, a Republican National Committee member from Concord, called the delegate penalty "a civil rights violation" and urged the state to take legal action against the DNC.
"They've turned the state of New Hampshire into some kind of leper colony," said Rath, who expects Republicans to hold their primary on the same day as Democrats.
Dante Scala, a political science professor at St. Anselm College, expects candidates to continue campaigning here.
"My guess is it will be pretty much business as usual," said Scala, author of "Stormy Weather: The New Hampshire Primary and Presidential Politics."
Scala doesn't believe penalizing candidates will deter their visits.
"No one comes up here to campaign here for the delegates," he said. "You come up here to win New Hampshire and get on the cover of Time magazine and the momentum that comes with that victory."
The DNC, by an overwhelming voice vote, approved a calendar calling on Iowa to lead off with its caucuses Jan. 14, followed by Nevada and its caucuses Jan. 19. New Hampshire would follow three days later, before South Carolina would hold its primary at least a week later.
New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Kathleen Sullivan called the new calendar "a hurried and Band-aid approach" that will result in fewer than 500,000 voters from four states choosing the party's 2008 nominee.
In a final impassioned plea, Sullivan said she would risk criticism at home if she thought the new calendar would get Democrats the Presidency.
"As much as I love my state, as much as I love New Hampshire, if I truly thought this plan would get us back the White House, I would support it and face the wrath of my Democrats and Republican friends back home, but I don't think that's the case," Sullivan said.
"I do not believe this plan will give us the White House back in 2008, but I would have supported it if I thought it worked because it is so critically important that we take our country back," she said.
"By compressing Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina into 15 days early in the calendar, our candidates will not face the test of speaking to average voters about the issues that will matter in November 2008," Sullivan said.
Gardner said New Hampshire has a history of providing a voice for the common man for nearly two centuries and blasted Dean, who ran for President four years ago, for trying to silence that.
"For a state that was responsible for creating the first national Democratic convention 174 years ago, and having our first-in-the-nation tradition created 86 years ago, it's insulting and disrepectful to the people of New Hampshire for Chairman Dean to threaten potential Presidental candidates if they dare to set foot on the soil in this state." Gardner said.
"It's been New Hampshire for the little guy fighting the big guys and when Dean was a little guy, in both spoken and written word, he championed New Hampshire's traditional role and position in the nominating process. But now no longer the little guy outsider, he seems to have forgotton the virtue of New Hampshire's tradition."
Ohio U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who represents Cleveland, told DNC members the changes were to ensure more racial and geographic balance and to "produce the best and strongest democratic nominee" for President.
About 30 percent of Nevada's population is African-American or Hispanic; South Carolina totals about a third, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparison, New Hampshire is 96 percent white and Iowa 95 percent.
U.S. Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., called the DNC vote "an unfortunate setback for the New Hampshire primary in general, but I don't blame the New Hampshire Democrats for that."
Added Bass: "The change reflects a very clear policy from the national Democrats that they do not like the kind of election we have in New Hampshire, that it doesn't suit the Democratic elite or the Washington elite," he said.
State GOP chairman Wayne Semprini said Democrats have "gone from the ridiculous to the absurd" by penalizing candidates.
He also thinks the governor and Sullivan took "too much of a wait-and-see attitude."
Mike Dennehy, a former member of the Republican National Committee, predicted New Hampshire's date would be shifted.
"I do believe New Hampshire will more than likely be before Jan. 22," he said.
"In the end, I'm very confident that New Hampshire's significance and importance will remain intact."
And the penalty if NH moves their primary ahead of NV? The RATs will ignore the results of the NH primary!!! Holy Diebold, Batman, that's gonna leave a mark!
Jimmy Carter's son, Jack, is running in Nevada for the dem. senate nomination. He thinks it's okay for Israel to defend itself. (Jimmy does not.) Presumably Nevadans will be smart enough to defeat Carter.
Have it tom orrow. Who cares?/
It dosnt mean anything anyay , because its too early.
This is ALL about insuring that nothing interferes with the coming GREAT PAYDAY that the nomination of Queen Hillary provides to the Washington Democrat Establishment types, who make thier living from the skim on the hundreds of millions she will generate...
You didn't think all those Limos, Private Jets, and Waterfront Homes come CHEAP, do ya??
Libs have been useful idiots until now, but The Machine is ready for thier take now, and it's being made clear to them they no longer matter...
The reason most candidates need millions is to tell people who they are. We already know who she is! Hillary couldn't get more name recognition if she tried. Now all she has to do is convince millions of people that she really isn't a left wing nut case.
The moonbats are trying to sink the Queen Hillary in New Hampshire so the DNC has decided to ignore the New Hampshire moonbats.
Surely state law trumps party rules. The primary would have to be 7 days before any similar election, although apparently no delegates can be awarded, or no one can campaign there.
If I were the secretary of state of NH, I would schedule the primary 7 days before NV's in compliance with the law. Presumably Democrats would have to have a caucus at their own expense after the NV primary.
I doubt states would allow that to happen, given the cost to conduct two elections right in a row, the nonpartisan contests that also occur that would get spread over both voting days, and the runoff provisions that could quadruple the voting days. Also, the cross-over voting can work both ways. I think a hidden agenda of all this is to generate a FUD factor and push for a single National primary day. That would be a very bad thing for America.
Howard the Coward has been waiting a long time to get some revenge on our neighbors in NH. There is no sales tax in NH so VT businesses along the common border suffered because of VT's 4,5,6 and now in some towns 7% Sales tax. Howie never had an answer to counter this situation. The sales tax was required because the Rats,former guv mad madeline kunin in particular used a 50 million dollar surplus to add two thousand government jobs. Bernie the commie and Howard the coward then drove our largest employer, IBM , over to New York. Now the state is the largest employer.
Funny thing is, no matter when the dates are, if the Republican and Democrat primaries are on the same day, you know the RAT is getting the cover of Time, Newsweak and all the MSM dailies and weeklies.
ping
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