Wyoming Latest to Defy New Hampshire Date
James Pindell has an interesting look at the Wyoming GOP’s decision to move their caucus to January 5th, risking the wrath of the national party in so doing. They feel they have already benefited, regardless of the outcome, because the system as it has operated previously made them a total non-factor in the nominating process.
This story once again highlights the silliness of designing a system to feed the sense of entitlement of Iowa and New Hampshire and allowing them to hold the other 48 states hostage.
…and Michigan is at least considering January 15th.
Wyoming is the perfect state to “defy” the current primary scheduling. Take away all three party delegates for holding the primary anyway. Who cares. But get the press for winning, that is worth something.
But if Wyoming was really smart about it, they would set the date for something like October 1, 2007. Watch New Hampshire scramble to get ahead of that date. Then when they did, Wyoming can re-set their date to January.
Wyoming actually gets more than 3 delegates to the Republican National Convention, though certainly less than most other states. Not all delegates are selected in the Primaries either, as the state GOP Party head gets an automatic spot. Exactly how the delegates are chosen is determined by the state party, and can be a mix of those chosen in the primary (or caucus) AND state party officials, or totally chosen in the primary (I looked at the WY GOP website and couldn’t easily find out how WY does it). Looking at the 2004 Republican Convention, there were 2,509 delegates (so ~5x the Electoral College number of 538).
For 2004 my rough count of WY delegates is, based on the rules listed in the link above (with a * next to a number that is population based):
10 at large (all states got 10)
1 Party Chairman
3* for WY’s lone Congressman
4.5 + 60%(3=electoral votes)= 6* for voting Republican in 2000
4 for having a Republican governor, Congressman, local legislature, etc
2 for having Republican Senators
So about 28 delegates in 2004 (my numbers assume that everything was Republican controlled in WY 1998-2004, so my numbers could be off by a couple). The allocation should be similar in 2008.