RNC Chairman urges Florida not to move up 2012 primary
Washington (CNN) - Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus asked Florida legislators Wednesday not to move up the date of their state's 2012 presidential primary, and to comply with the nominating calendar agreed upon by both national parties.
Florida Republicans – who control the governor's mansion and both chambers of the legislature – are considering the move in hopes of wielding greater influence over the GOP nominating process.
A handful of other states are pondering a similar change, which could threaten the recommended February start date of the 2012 Republican primary fight.
"As far as Florida is concerned, I would encourage the legislature to do everything they can to abide by the rules passed by both the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee together to make sure we can bring some order into the presidential election process," Priebus said during a visit to Tampa, site of the 2012 Republican National Convention.
His comments were reported by the St. Petersburg Times.
After the early and front-loaded 2008 calendar forced candidates to campaign during the holidays, the RNC and the DNC agreed that the first four caucus and primary states – Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina – should hold their contests in February.
Under the new rules – ratified by the RNC at its summer meeting in August - states choosing to hold contests before March 1 would be stripped of their delegates to the convention.
"We're doing everything we can at the Republican National Committee to fulfill our promise to try and get presidential primaries on track with some semblance of order," Priebus said, according to the paper. "One of the things that we did is that we've put together a primary schedule for the presidentials which protects four early state primaries in February but then moves all the other states out of the February window to a date on or after March 1."
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FL has just as many right wing nut jobs as South Carolina, so I think Preibus is out of line. It is Florida and Ohio that will determine the next election, not New Hampshire and South Carolina.
I have a feeling that the 2012 election will be longer and more messy than the last cycle.
Now you know why the RNC is $20 million in the hole, they lack leadership.
bunch of old retirees are in FL, they are going to catch these old coots....what a pity....GOP will mess this nation like a hell...trure, true, and true..
florida is a joke...sell em to the cubans!
This is like talking to the Taliban.
The tradition of having Iowa and New Hampshire be the earliest to have primaries needs to end. Those states never mattered when it comes to picking presidential nominees. California, Texas, Florida, and New York should band together and all have their primaries on the same date before any other states. Let the RNC and DNC try to strip all the delegates from those states and see what happens!
When will these guys realize that the larger states (California, Texas, Florida, etc) actually have more power later in the Nominating process by being kingmakers.
"states choosing to hold contests before March 1 would be stripped of their delegates to the convention."
Good! The democrats did exactly that to a couple of states last time around. We need rotating regional primaries instead of this New Hampshire-Iowa nonsense. The earliest states are just using the process for political advantage.
And while we're at it, does anyone else want to toss the whole Electoral College system and go to a national popular vote?
The arrogance if Floridan republicans will win out in that debate.