Thursday, May 28, 2015

Super Tuesday, Southern Style

The southern states are poised to dominate the early 2016 campaign schedule for the Presidential hopefuls.  Arkansas just joined Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, & Tennessee for a March 1st Super Tuesday blitz.
 Louisiana will follow on March 5th. Yes, that's a Saturday event, but the former French colony has some rich traditions like that.
  The twin states of Alabama & Mississippi will go to the polls on Tuesday, March 8th. They tend to coordinate their presidential primaries. These 2 gulf states were a part of the original Super Tuesday which was designed by several southern Democrat legislatures prior to the 1988 campaign cycle. The idea was to give a big boost to a southern conservative Democrat early enough to boost his fundraising and 'electability' status, because Northeast liberals had been dominating Democrat presidential politics.

The idea of Super Tuesday was instituted by Democrats in 1988,
to give a big boost
to a southern conservative Democrat
Then comes the big March 15th contest in Florida; along with Missouri. Florida has gotten into some trouble for using primary rules which are incompatible with RNC requirements. We'll see how they deal with their appetite for 'winner-take-all' dispersions of delegate credentials.
After the 15th, states will be allowed to reward their top candidate with winner-take-all status even if the top candidate gets less than 50% of the statewide or districtwide vote totals.
Kansas & Georgia are still working on dates in their state nominating processes.
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David Van Risseghem

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