Trying To Make Itself More Important, NC GOP Just Makes Itself Smaller

NC GOP "jobs plan"

Here's the thing: Republican big-wigs in the NC General Assembly thought it would be too cool if they rewrote the law and forced the state's presidential primaries waaay up into February, or to be more precise, to the first Tuesday after the South Carolina presidential primary.

See, 'cause, those early presidential primary states get all this MONEY pumped into campaigning, and NC Republican politicians got all starry-eyed at the thought of, say, Jeb Bush battling it out with Scott Walker and Rand Paul (or whoever). Plus there's also the national prominence of appearing to actually matter. Because North Carolina's usual primary day in May is long after everything has been decided (usually). So North Carolina's presidential preferences get a big national "meh" ... unless it was when Democrats chose Obama over Clinton in the May primary of 2008.

But there's a worm in this rose bud. The Republican National Committee will punish North Carolina Republicans severely for messing up their carefully calculated presidential primary schedule. Moving a presidential primary to an earlier date is called "jumping the line." Florida did it and lost the bulk of its convention delegates in retaliation. Florida did not like that.

If North Carolina does indeed hold a presidential primary on the first Tuesday after South Carolina's presidential primary -- which is actually the law at the moment, signed by Governor Squishy -- then NC will have its National Republican Convention delegates cut from 72 to 12.

Why would 2016 Republican presidential hopefuls spend big advertising bucks, not to mention salaries for field representatives, for just 12 convention delegates?

They won't.

Long article detailing all the infighting, which is most interesting because it quotes Josh Putnam, a professor at Appalachian State University, "who runs the web site Frontloading HQ, which covers the presidential primary system in obsessive detail." We do have a weakness for "obsessive detail."