The Blog is a Cruel Mistress

Anyway, reading around Townhall today and there's nothing that jumps out immediately, so I'll comment on this article by Donald Lambro, about the recent dust up in Political Primaries. Apparently South Carolina might move their primary up despite threats from the national party to limit the number of delegates the party can send.

But South Carolina's GOP is one of only two state parties that can set its own primary dates, and last week Dawson told me "we are going to move our primary up accordingly before Jan. 29 to ensure that we are the first in the South."

That will create havoc with the other January players, but that doesn't bother Dawson, a tough-as-nails Southern warrior who is one of the longest serving GOP chairmen in the country.

"I'm not worrying about angering anyone else," he said. "Remember, this is a state that started the Civil War. We are not worried about offending any state. We're going to pick a date and let the chips fall where they may." Dawson knows that by violating the party's rules "we would lose half our delegates, but we are prepared for all that because this primary is important for South Carolina and for all Republicans."

First of all let me say how morally depraved it is for Dawson to note approvingly that his state started the Civil War, a war that claimed the lives of 618,000. If anything that speaks to the fact that South Carolina should go last in the primary season. That's one crazy messed up state, and as a reward we give them the place of pride in the southern primaries?

Anyway as for the whole presidential primary kerfluffle, and the attendant situation in which the primaries come very early in the year, I regretfully agree with Lambro's assessment toward the end of his article.

There will be the remaining mop-up work in the lesser primaries, followed by a long and costly dark time where the presumptive nominees must struggle to maintain visibility with very little to do until the late summer conventions.

Keeping their parties energized over this lengthy down time will be a challenge for any candidate, but especially the Democratic nominee who will have to endure a four-to-five month gauntlet of Republican attacks -- something the GOP is unusually good at. Ask John Kerry.

What a depressing thought.