Democrats toying with primary timetable

Democratic party activists are pushing to change the order of the US primaries (the demographics of the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary don't represent the party's base).

However, as this posting on MyDD shows, the process is not straightforward. For starters the State of New Hampshire has a law that requires it to hold the first full primary of election year.

For what it's worth, I think the parties should decide the order they want to hold their primaries. But there is a danger that the U.S. Democratic Party is "fighting the last war" - again. Howard Dean's failure in 2004 to compete in either Iowa or New Hampshire killed his chances of winning the Democratic nomination. In event, I can see no basis for the belief that he would have got more votes than Senator John Kerry did. And if anything, a Howard Dean candidacy would have guaranteed that all the Republicans who came out to back President George W. Bush's re-election, were prepared to stand in queues for hours to vote.