Texas rejects early primary in 2008

Houston Chronicle:

Forget about the barrage of political advertising, the candidate fly-arounds and the rallies across the Lone Star State next winter.

With the failure of state legislation to move the 2008 Texas primary election to Feb. 5 from March 4, the presidential primary contest most likely will be decided in other states, some of which bumped up their elections to have more clout in choosing the major parties' nominees next year.

"There is no doubt that Texas is going to be less relevant and may be irrelevant," said George Edwards, professor of political science at Texas A&M University.

Both political parties in the state supported an earlier primary date. But the proposal died in the Legislature's recently ended session largely because of opposition from county officials, including Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, who feared the change would complicate local elections.

California, New York and New Jersey are among the states that will for the first time hold their primaries on Feb. 5, immediately following contests in the smaller states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. The number of nominating delegates from each state is determined largely by population size.

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The Texas House approved moving up the state's primary. But the legislation never made it out of the Texas Senate.

State GOP party spokesman Hans Klingler called the failure of the legislation a "missed opportunity for Texas." If the primary were held earlier, he said, presidential candidates would pay more attention to the state other than to show up just to raise campaign funds to spend elsewhere.

"This bill would have precluded the state from being treated like a giant ATM," he said.

About 57 percent of delegates to the 2008 Republican convention in Minneapolis will be chosen before Texans hold their primary, he said.

Texas has the second-largest number of GOP delegates behind California.

About 63 percent of Texas' delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver will be selected before the March 4 primary, according to a spokeswoman for the Texas Democratic Party. Texas ranks third behind California and New York in the number of Democratic delegates.

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I think it is likely that the contest will not be decided by March 4, particularly on the Republican side. The early states are leaning against the nationwide trend in voter preference which suggest that they will not be very decisive this year. Giuliani is the leader in all the nationwide polling, but does not lead in any of the early primary states, unless you consider Florida one of those states now. If so Florida probably has more delegates than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined. But with McCain and Romney leading in the early states, it suggest that the contest will probably not be decided by March 4. If that is the case, then the Texas becomes even more important.

It is ironic that the tax assessor collectors would make the Texas business and broadcasters pass up a lot of revenue because they were troubled by scheduling some local elections. Since their positions are also elected, they may see some competition in 2008 too.