Washington (CNN) - South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary will be held on Jan. 21 of next year, two GOP sources tell CNN.
South Carolina Republican Party Chairman Chad Connelly will formally announce the date later this morning.
The move is designed to put space between South Carolina and Florida, which bucked national Republican Party rules last week and decided to hold their primary on Jan. 31.
The updated calendar is likely to push the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary even earlier into January as they seek to protect their role as the two leadoff contests in the presidential nominating process.
“Last Friday, a nine-person committee brought chaos to the 2012 calendar,” said South Carolina GOP Chairman Chad Connelly. “Today, South Carolina is making things right. South Carolina Republicans have a thirty year track record of picking the eventual Republican Presidential nominee. We will continue that historic tradition on January 21, 2012.”
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Cute. A grown-up version of the popular pre-school game, No ME First!
They have already broken their own rules because the deadline for setting/changing dates was supposed to have been October 1. The RNC is flying by the seat of its' blazing pants on this issue.
I'm in Florida, so I get a front row seat to watch the GOP cannibalize itself. Meanwhile, Florida's GOP delegates (or what's left of them) will be watching from the back of the convention hall.
Priceless.
This is getting dumb.
As a native South Carolinian, I am going to laugh and say at least we are first in something, beside obesity rates and the amount of women that die at the hands of their husbands/ boyfriends. Also, check out the Confederate Flag still flying on Statehouse grounds.
How the heck the republican have become the The Mess UP Party ?
The problem is that New Hampshire is not representative of the diversity of the nation. It has very few minorities. If a candidate drops out because of his or her showing in New Hampshire, then the rest of us are cheated out of a full slate of choices. Florida and probably South Carolina do have more diverse populations, so they would be a better gauge of the nation. Another solution might involve a rotating list of primary dates, where primary dates are rotated among states.
Ron Paul has South Carolina. GOP Front Runner!
Didn't Michigan try to do what Florida just did during the last election and get punished by having all candidates boycott the primary and having their delegates invalidated?
Florida will counter by announcing they will change their date to October 4th, 2011.
South Carolina will counter by announcing that they are having theirs this afternoon.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina to be the states that have the most say on who the presidential candidates are. All three of these states are primarily rural states with no large cities and little to no diversity. It's time to at least let a few other states like Florida, Michigan, Arizona have a chance at going first. Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina should go the end of the line for the next 30 years or so.
I'd like to extend my special thanks to the Republicans for providing us with commercial-free nonstop entertainment.
..and the days leading up to 1/21/12 will feature the most blatent pandering to the zealots who demand only purity in their candidates. You could close you eyes, listen to these people and think you were back in Berlin in the 1930's
Why not just have all the primaries in 2011 so we can spend almost the whole year in 2012 listening to debates and speeches. What fun.
The primary system gives too much clout to the radicals in the Bible Belt. The American Taliban get to set the tone for the primary and the states with a significant level of people or industry pick up the pieces. The Republicans are really, really broken.
"South Carolina Republicans have a thirty year track record of picking the eventual Republican Presidential nominee. We will continue that historic tradition..."
Does anyone else find anything unsettling about this statement? Are those of us in the other 49 states supposed to honor SC's tradition of picking the nominee? There is something fundamentally wrong about a few privileged states having such a powerful voice, and the rest of us being relegated to the status of "unwashed masses".
Why do we have to have primaries so early these days? Why do candidates need 10 months of campaigning? All these people have other jobs which they will be ignoring for basically a year. We need to make some changes and move all this election stuff into a 6 month period at worst (3 months would be better).
Sister Sarah your out. the GOP is passing you bye
This is getting pathetic and ridiculous. Me me me first. Besides, I have a big problem with the idea that a handful of states get to pick the eventual nominee in each party. I say "every" states holds their primaries on the same date. Make these campaign hard; they want the job, don't they?!!
As a Democrat, I couldn't care less if the Repubs self-destruct. On the other hand, someday the Democrats are going to be faced with the same dilemma. It's not hard to understand why any state's party would want an early primary. The only sane way out of this is for Iowa and New Hampshire to recognize their claim to going first is turning the Presidential primary season into a joke. It's time for both parties to set up a scheme where different states or groups of states rotate their place in the order.
Florida and most other states will have plenty of visits by both candidates during the general election. SC will be lucky to get 1, thus the reason it's important we remain the first in the south and one of the first 4 as it gives the citizens of this great state a chance to meet the canidates. Florida needs to obey the rules of the RNC and the RNC needs to penalize offenders. To say SC is not a diverse state is laughable. SC has one of the largest African American population in the nation based on % of the overall state population. It is also the reason why SC is one of the early states to hold a primary (same is applied to NV due to its hispanic population). For those who are laughing at the GOP, the DNC has the exact same rules as the same 4 states go first.
Ooo! Ooo! Can I hold mine on January 2nd?
This has gotten ridiculous. As usual games of priority is the order of the day in politics.
And they wonder why people are so over all of them!
Pretty soon, Christmas lights in July, the next primaries right after the election.
If every state moves up their primary, doesn't that just leave them in roughly the same order as they were before? The Republicans are behaving like spoiled children again. Can't we just line them all up for a good spanking and send them back to kindergarten where they belong?
I thought the GOP respects rules. I guess that is the old GOP. The new one is just nuts is seems.