7-27 Meeting with Special Guest Josh Putnam

This week’s meeting featured a special presentation on the primary schedule by Josh Putnam, creator and author of the FrontloadingHQ blog and former UGA alum. Josh’s talk focused on the current structure of the primary schedule, which is still being defined. Josh is an expert on frontloading by the states (states moving their presidential primaries earlier and earlier in order to gain influence over the presidential nomination) and started the meeting by highlighting this cycle’s curious trend of some states moving their primaries backward rather than forward on the calendar. According to Josh, states are doing this due to a number of factors ranging from cost-cutting efforts to frustration that their earlier contests failed to reach the level of influence anticipated when the move forward was enacted. The 2008 cycle saw 24 states hosting their primary contests on Super Tuesday. So far the 2012 cycle has only 10 states participating in Super Tuesday, a more than 50% reduction.

Despite this broader trend, there are several “rogue” states that appear to be still jockeying to move their contests up, including AZ, MO, WI, MI, CO, FL, and GA. When these states decide to hold their contests will ultimately determine when we will see the IA, NH, NV, and SCs contests held. While far from finalized, if each state listed above indeed decides on their optimal date, we could see the Iowa and NH hosting their contests in middle of December, although this scenario is unlikely. It’s interesting to speculate the affects this might have on participation in these contests, particularly in the Iowa Caucuses, which are time consuming to participate in. Would this decrease the number of caucus goers as many will be too busy preparing for the holidays, or otherwise unwilling or unable to take part in the state’s famed presidential politics during a month traditionally reserved for family and holiday cheer? Or would it allow people normally locked out of the caucus process due to its high commitment structure to participate? Regardless, the idea of the Iowa caucuses and combative presidential politics during a month normally devoted to spiked eggnog and college football bowl games definitely has a Grinch-like feel.

The crux of Josh’s presentation is that the presidential primary schedule is still in flux and is likely to remain so to some degree even past the party’s deadline of October 1^st. Please visit Josh’s site, frontloading.blogspot.com for more in-depth analysis on these topics and to stay apprised of developments on the calendar.

The meeting then turned to a discussion on how various schedules might affect candidate strategies with Josh and several group members opining that any elongated contest is likely to benefit front runner and money leader Mitt Romney. Particularly in the Republican Party contests, the first 2 contests have traditionally winnowed the field to a few candidates and the presumptive nominee emerging at the conclusion of the Super Tuesday races. But as mentioned several times in earlier posts on this blog, this year’s candidate field and ideological divisions in the Republican Party between Establishment Republicans and Tea Party Republicans looks likely to produce different winners in IA and NH, perhaps again in NV and SC, and there could be two viable candidates still competing for the nomination after Super Tuesday. This would result in the unorthodox situation of the late February and March contests being determinative. There is no doubt that state party leaders in the remaining “rogue” states are considering this possibility as they contemplate moving their primaries up. It was the general opinion of the group that Romney is currently the only candidate positioned to have the funds and organization needed to wage multi-state battles into March. However, the winnowing of the field would likely help the Tea Party’s preferred candidate by streamlining donations that are currently being dispersed amongst several candidates and may allow a candidate like Michele Bachmann to continue to effectively compete.

Hope to see you at next week’s meeting on Wednesday, August 3^rd at 3:00 in room 302 of Baldwin Hall, which will be the last meeting of the group’s summer session. The day and time of the fall meetings will be determined soon so please be sure to let Paul know your availability for the fall as it becomes known.