Primary Importance

It happened over Labor Day weekend so I missed it originally, but, yeah, Michigan's officially holding its primary on January 15th now. Screwing up the primary calender and ruffling no small amount of feather's in the national parties and New Hampshire/Iowa/New Mexico/South Carolina, the four states which were supposed to have the monopoly on going first. Where this gets interesting is that, by now, the leading candidates have all pledged not to campaign in states like Florida and Michigan who've moved their primaries and upset that schedule. It's a little unclear at this point what, exactly, that means because they can still hold fundraisers, for one, and there are sure to be all sorts of loopholes to exploit in the coming weeks and months. Because Michigan has 17 electoral votes and Florida has 27. That's an awful lot to leave on the table by alienating voters by refusing to participate in a primary. Nasty letters and claims are already flying back and forth, so don't be surprised if this one gets ugly before it's through.