THEY'RE FOOLING AROUND ALREADY – AT 12:20 P.M. ET:   Pretty soon, the presidential race, and the states are competing with each other.  From the Politico:

California’s newly instituted March 3 primary date is rattling the early presidential state map, as Democratic state and party officials grapple with the shadow cast by the nation’s most populous state.

The idea that millions of absentee and mail-in votes could be cast in advance of California’s actual primary election day — and the prospect that presidential candidates might bypass the early states entirely to concentrate on target-rich California — is finally beginning to sink in.

Bill Gardner, the longtime secretary of state who has the legal authority to set the New Hampshire primary election date, told POLITICO he doesn’t plan to set the date for the nation’s first presidential primary until the fall, when he will better understand the potential impact of California’s early voting and determine whether other state legislatures have attempted to infringe on the Granite State’s first position.

While the schedule set forth by the Democratic National Committee has New Hampshire’s primary slated for Feb. 11, 2020, Gardner raised the prospect that the date could change.

“Not the case,” said Gardner, referring to the Feb. 11 date. “I haven’t set the date. I’ll set the date, most likely, next fall.”

Was it possible that he could set the nominating contest as early as December 2019? Gardner called that speculative, but wouldn’t rule it out.

“Well, the law, and the circumstances could require that. The law says it can be in the year of the election or the year before,” he said. “The law provides a great deal of flexibility in order to preserve the tradition of the primary.”

COMMENT:  I'll bet some political operator comes up with the idea of primaries starting a year or more before the election.  The news networks would love it.  So would the ad agencies and the political advisers.  The 18-month campaign might actually happen.

December 23, 2018