Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.
The Democratic National Committee had laid out a reasonable plan for next year's primaries to select its nominee for president.
It shuffled some dates around, moving contests in Nevada and South Carolina to January to increase minority and labor participation early in the process. The committee added those two states to Iowa and New Hampshire as the only contests in January.
Unfortunately, some states are still fighting that. On Tuesday, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a bill moving the state's Democratic and Republican primaries to Jan. 15, four days before Nevada's caucus . Michigan joins Florida, which moved to join South Carolina on Jan. 29. Ohio also is considering a plan to move to Jan. 29.
It is a mess, and it is not just the Democrats. Republicans have played their own game of leapfrog. In addition to Florida's and Michigan's , Nevada's Republicans moved to Jan. 19, as did South Carolina 's . And Wyoming plans to vote on Jan. 5.
The DNC has threatened sanctions, saying states that move their primaries will lose delegates to the convention. Doing so would minimize, if not make irrelevant, their primaries. Also, the top Democratic candidates this weekend signed a pledge to skip states that break party rules with early primaries.
Granholm's response is to encourage candidates to break the pledge, which is inane.
If candidates refuse to honor the pledge, it would result in other states leapfrogging Michigan. That, of course, would result in Michigan moving up its primary yet again. The madness has got to stop.
The candidates were right to sign the pledge, and they should keep it. States such as Florida and Michigan should back off or be stripped of their delegates.
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