Michael Steele's Presidential Primary Power

Over at TheNextRight, Soren Dayton asks: What will Michael Steele do with the presidential primary calendar?

Anyone who follows politics closely knows that, despite all the campaigning and fundraising candidates do, ultimately, the rules go a long way toward picking primary winners and losers.

For example, consider the following questions:

... If New Hampshire weren't the first primary state, would McCain still have won the GOP nomination? Or what if all the primaries were "closed", so that Independents couldn't have voted in some?

... If the DNC had not refused to seat the entire Florida delegation, would Hillary have won the Democratic nomination?

According to Dayton,

The key thing is that Steele picks 11 of the members and will have almost complete control over the committee, if he wants it. What will Michael Steele do? What will Michael Steele want? This could be a major legacy of his term as chairman. It will complete before he has to run for re-election in 2011, and it will probably mark the beginning of Presidential maneuvering. Also, given the differences between RNC and DNC rules, whatever deal that Steele cuts with the Democrats on this will likely be long-standing.

Granted, it's early for a blogger to be thinking about primary elections -- which is exactly why Dayton's question is a very astute one to ask ...

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