Moving Forward

What’s the deal with states constantly moving their primaries earlier and earlier? I can sort of understand California wanting to move its primary ahead, seeing as how it was originally so late in the season that by the time it’s primary was held, the result was mostly irrelevant. Unfortunately, as soon as California moved it’s primary date up, everyone else had to follow suit, so that now, everything is bunched up at the beginning of the year. And now we have South Carolina moving it's primary date up to January 19th. If this sort of thing keeps up, well be holding primaries for the 2016 Presidential election during the 2012 Presidential campaign.
The real source of all this is that New Hampshire has a law on it’s books that says that they must be the first state in the nation to hold a primary each season. So when other states start moving their primaries up, New Hampshire is required by state law to move theirs up so that they’re still first.
So how do we solve this problem? I say the simple solution is to kick New Hampshire out of the Union. What purpose do they serve, anyway? The only thing they have worth exporting to other states is snow, and we can always get that from Maine. Sure, Bob Newhart won’t be happy that his Inn is no long a part of the union, but he’s an old man, and won’t be able to put up much of a fight.

Now that I think about it, I think Newhart was actually set in Vermont, not New Hampshire. So I guess Bob can stay. I’m not sure how this discussion of the primary system devolved into beating up on Bob Newhart, but, whatever.