hey, remember when, before this year, states were moving up their primaries in the hopes of getting more attention? they kept moving the dates forward, leapfrogging over one another, hoping to be more like iowa and new hampshire. because party rules prohibited all but a handful of states from holding their primary earlier than february 5th, the states piled up on that date on the primary calendar. that's why we had "super-tuesday." by moving their primary date to the earliest date possible, they thought they would get more attention.
it occurs to me that the opposite actually happened, at least in the democratic race. states that didn't move their primary--states like pennsylvania and indiana--ended up getting more attention than states that moved their date forward and got lost in the crowd of super-tuesday.
i wonder if this year's history will change states' behavior before the next primary. maybe the thinking about the best strategy for getting attention will shift. instead of being early, maybe they'll try to set a date with few other states going at the same time, and/or with a lag of time before hand where no other states are voting. because the strategy depends on the scheduling of other states, however, it would be difficult for an individual state to plan for something like that.
on the other hand, on the republican side the ones that moved up their primary are the only ones that got any attention at all. for the republicans, it was all-but-done on super-tuesday. no one paid attention to the pennsylvania and indiana republican votes. maybe that mixed message will get states to conclude that the democratic primary this year was a fluke and they should stick with the earlier prevailing wisdom.
