Complete Congressional Primary Calendar

By GottaLaff

Election Year 2010. Oy. Here we go again. Here's a partial primary calendar. Follow the link for more:

February 2

• Illinois

March 2

• Texas

April 13

• Texas run-off
  

May 4

• Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio

May 11

• Nebraska, West Virginia

May 18

• Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania

May 25

• Idaho

June 1

• Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico

June 8

• California, Iowa, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Arkansas run-off

Now that you've seen that, here's more election season news:

Politics magazine: "The year 2000 marked the second straight decade when Republicans headed into the process better prepared and, regardless of how dirty Democrats accused the GOP of playing, ultimately got the best of their opposition. It's something Democrats are determined to not let happen again. Heading into the 2010 Census, Democrats have rebuilt their redistricting machine to match the Republican one."

We've barely recovered from 2008 with all its carnage, and it's starting all over again.

Obama Looking to Diminish Superdelegates

By GottaLaff

After what we all went through during the primaries, it's good to see that Obama is looking to, ahem, changing the status quo:

Barack Obama's campaign will call next week for the creation of a new commission to revise the rules for selecting a presidential nominee in 2012 with a goal of reducing the power of superdelegates, whose role became a major point of contention during the long battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton.

The commission also will be urged to redraw the calendar for 2012 to avoid starting the primaries and caucuses so early, and also to look specifically at assuring more uniform rules and standards for those caucuses.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the campaign will ask the national convention delegates in Denver to approve a resolution approving the establishment of a 35-member Democratic Change Commission. The charter would authorize the Democratic National Committee chairman appoint the commission soon after the election and ask them to report back by January 2010.

The proposed changes grow out of discussions between Obama's campaign team, officials at the Democratic National Committee and representatives of Hillary Clinton's former presidential campaign, Plouffe said.[...]

"The number of super delegates has gotten too large in relation to overall delegates," Plouffe said. "We want to give more control back to the voters.... Everyone thinks there ought to be more weight given to the results of the elections."[...]

The other significant change is the call to redraw the primary and caucus calendar. The 2008 calendar drew significant criticism both for the early starting dates for the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries, and also because there were so many states crowded into the first month of what turned out to be a five-month campaign.

As envisioned by the Obama and Clinton campaigns, most contests could not be held before March, except for a handful of states authorized to go earlier -- presumably in February rather than January.[...]

The other major area the commission will be asked to examine is the operation of caucuses in states that choose that process rather than a primary. The caucuses drew criticism, particularly from the Clinton campaign, which said they restricted participation and that in some states lacked the necessary infrastructure to insure fairness.

I'm sure we can expect the usual Democratic infighting over these issues. Herding cats and all that.

Meow.

UPDATE: Now it's being reported that Stephanie Tubbs Jones has not died, but is in critical condition. One of my closest friends had a brain aneurysm, and recovered completely because they caught it right away. I don't see a good outcome here, even if Jones survives.