There goes Florida again

I always thought Texas was the de facto owner of the "Wackiest State in the Union" crown, but once again Florida has shown why it's the only state to have it's own tag on Fark.com.

The Floridian Republican Party has "gone rogue" on the RNC and will likely decide they're going to hold their primary on January 31st, and screw them if they don't like it!

This will likely have the effect of once again causing a rush for states to "front-load" their primary dates under the premise that the earlier their election is held, the more influence their results have on the eventual nominee selection.

Problem is, you end up with 38 states having their primaries over a 6-week period, and the candidates have to pick and choose which states to visit and actually connect with the voters. The vast majority of voters will have zero opportunity to hear their candidate speak (other than the 10- to 20-second carefully selected sound bites on whichever media outlet they watch) and will make their choices based on whatever fragments of truth managed to trickle down through the dense layers of corporate media spin and land somewhere south of their frontal lobes.

Connecticut was "lucky" in 2008, with both Barack Obama and John McCain visiting the state in the hours preceding the February 5th primary. Both candidates indeed won in Connecticut, so there's something to be said about actually showing up in a primary state and having time to connect with the voters.

(Oh, and Sen. Joe Lieberman is still a treacherous scumbag and a cheap Republican shill for embracing GOP puppet John McCain on that stage in Fairfield during that ridiculously over-produced spectacle. I just wanted to acknowledge that because we won't have Joe Lieberman to kick around forever now, will we?)

But there were about 20 states who held primaries on that same date, and I doubt even in this age of personal jetpacks and flying cars (what? we don't even have those yet?) it was impossible for the candidates to properly speak to the residents of all those states.

So in an ongoing effort to stem the stampede of front-loading, both the Republican and Democratic national leaders have created rules to space out the primaries and both give the candidates the proper amount of time to campaign and also allow the race to progress in an orderly fashion where the better person is more likely to rise to the top. (not a guarantee by any means)

According to the RNC rules, any state which moves it's primary before March 6th (with the exception of the first four "carve-out" states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) will lose half it's designated delegates at the national convention.

But sometime on Friday it's very likely that Florida will disregard this threat and go ahead and schedule their primary early. And a result will be a similar stampede to the front that will wreak havoc over the carefully designed schedule and end up short-changing the voters from seeing their candidates.

Good work, Florida. You're now my all-time favorite "Wackiest State in the Union"!