Likewise for Iowa.
I've long advocated a two-state opening primary with Tennessee and Oklahoma starting the election season. Those states are far more representative of the real America and they're both small enough (geographically and in terms of population) for the candidates to do retail politics as well as media buys.
Had Tennessee and Oklahoma launched the 2012 primaries, is there any doubt that the results we've seen thus far would have been far different...and far better?
No, we need a state with an urban population, too. One of the reasons the GOP does poorly in cities is that all of the energy in the campaigns is directed at a few liberal rural states and it looks to city dwellers as if the GOP is telling them to go drop dead.
Have one rural state (but not a liberal Midwest state) and one with a big urban population, such as Florida or even New York. Or, better yet, have all primaries on the same day.