Chasing the front of the primary vote is a fool's game. No one will give serious consideration to Oregon's paltry vote on February 5th. The more states do it the less relevant the Oregon vote is.

I think that there is just as much of a chance that the election will not be settled in February like everyone believes. With so many candidates there is a reasonable chance that no one will be over the magic number and they will still be chasing votes. This may be more likely on the Republican side, but I wouldn't rule it out for the Dems. Then the individual states who haven't voted will get more attention than the Feb. 5th crowd.

I'm sympathetic with the DNC's impulse to try to create a coherent primary schedule and avert the free-for-all. Unfortunately, that particular horse has LONG left the barn. Given that it will be a free-for-all in '08, Oregon should look out for itself.

As a matter of good practice, I like the idea of regional primaries, where blocks of states would vote together. That makes a lot more sense for the coherence of the election and it would subvert the over-emphasis we place on non-representative small states early in the process. It would also make it easier for candidates to phase their campaigns and save a little wear and tear--helpful for the candidate during the general.

With CA going early, there is good reason to assume candidates will kill two west-state birds with one trip and work for OR's votes...especially the Democrats.

"I absolutely think that candidates will ignore Oregon when they have a dozen more populous states to campaign in."

But the most populous is right next door, and is geographically separated from all of the others. In other words, everybody will be spending time in California, and they'll have to make a special trip to do it. Just like baseball teams schedule all their west coast opponents on the same trip, if there's votes to be gotten elsewhere on the West Coast without making a major detour, the candidates will do it.

Once again, folks, it's critical to note the STARTING date for voting - not the ending date.

Sure, a bunch of states are moving up to Feb 5.... but for most of them, most voters will vote on Feb 5.

If Oregon moves to Feb 5, then most voters will cast votes on Jan 18.

VBM behavior is substantially different on single-issue ballots than on regular ballots -- esp. a high profile one, like a presidential election.

In 1996, when Oregonians were voting in a January special election between Wyden and Smith, roughly 50% of voters cast their ballots on the first day. Roughly 50% of the remaining cast their ballots each day after. (For the scientists in the room, that's a half-life of one day.)

Given that 3.9 million Californians will start voting on January 8... expect Oregon and California to get lots of attention in early/mid-January.

By Feb 5, they will - of course - have moved on to other states... but that's three weeks later.

Come on Kari, you can do better than that. Just because the voting starts earlier means nothing because the votes don't get released until Feb. 5th and there is no publicity for the winning candidate that will help sway voters in the states that count. If candidates are giving up on straw polls in Iowa so that they can focus resources in the big states why whould they show up for a poll in Oregon that nobody will see until it is buried in super Tuesday.

And Torridjoe, just because candidates are in California doesn't mean the flight to Oregon is worthwhile. Keep in mind that the entire population of Oregon fits on the San Francisco penisula. The candidates will stop by Northern California, not Oregon, on their visits to Southern California.

First of all, (and I'm fond of saying this) the DNC wanted to fix our presidential primary system in the worst way, and did.

Despite the best efforts of the DNC, it's now every state for itself, and the DNC is in a corner.

I agree with Jeff on a regional primary system. So does nearly everybody else. Actually, I have never talked with anyone who doesn't like a regional primary system. The problem is: Our election systems are state-by-state, and states will support their own interests first. We'd have to go to a national system, which would create other problems, including a serious threat to vote-by-mail.

Dean has announced that the Florida Democrats will be penalized if they have the early primary and use it to apportion their delegation. The DPO has been notified that our delegation would likely be penalized if our primary moves to Feb. 5, because the DNC's Rules Committee believes that our universal earlier distribution of ballots constitutes an early election day. That penalty would be half of our pledged delegates and alternates, and all of our DNC members. Florida faces the same penalty.

We can argue whether a Feb. 5 Oregon presidential primary would constitute a violation of DNC rules. If the Legislature moves the primary to Feb. 5, and if the DNC follows through on its warning, then we will have a chance to defend our primary. We will take that opportunity. There are some sympathetic members of the DNC Rules Committee, and we may carry the day.

If we don't, we will probably need to go to a caucus system. In the past, in response to Matthew Sutton, three states have moved their primary to a day earlier than the DNC allowed, and all went to caucuses to protect their delegations.

There's some talk of the DNC bluffing, but I wouldn't count on that. I'm not sure that talk is anything more than wishful thinking. There's some pretty tough folks on the DNC Rules Committee -- there aren't many of us in tiny Oregon who would last more than a couple rounds with them.

On the other hand, we aren't the DNC's biggest problem, and as long as there's a state of Florida (or California, or Michigan or [insert large state name here]), we won't ever be.

States have the right to set their election laws. The DNC has the right to set the rules for the convention. As a member of the DNC, and chair of the DPO Rules Committee, I'm trying to make sure we have a process that fits within both sets of rules.

Come on Kari, you can do better than that. Just because the voting starts earlier means nothing because the votes don't get released until Feb. 5th and there is no publicity for the winning candidate that will help sway voters in the states that count.

Yeah, that's a factor -- and a tough one.

That said, I think the novelty factor of vote-by-mail will cause at least one (if not more) national pollsters to do something they've never been able to do before... do a poll of people who have returned ballots. Essentially, a statistically valid "exit" poll.

The Oregonian won't do that in our regular elections -- and that's probably a good thing. But I don't think the national media will be able to withstand the temptation.

Jeff says Oregon needs to "look out for itself." What does this mean? In order to answer this question, we have to ask ourselves whether moving to Feb. 5th will really increase Oregon's influence on the eventual primary outcome. My intuition is with Grant--Oregon is a small state, and while there may be a few flyover visits from candidates in California, we're likely to be ignored by all but the fringe (e.g. Kucinich) who believe they can do better in Oregon than nationwide due to our liberal leanings.

I just don't see the "huge" potential benefit that Kari is referring to.

I think the date / DNC issue is a red herring--Oregon has always counted its ballots as "cast" on election day (if you look at the state's responses to the 2004 election day survey, it reports 100% of ballots "cast" on election day because that is when we count them).

As to whether a relatively larger proportion of Oregonians will vote "early" vs. "late," I can't tell you. This is too new of a situation. I'd love to see some thoughts on this.

Kari, "absentee" voter polls are already old hat in CA and will certainly be conducted this campaign.

Kari, "absentee" voter polls are already old hat in CA and will certainly be conducted this campaign.

Really? Media outlets actually run polls on the universe of voters in California that have already turned in their ballots?

I didn't know that... If so, that proves my point: Media folks will be doing the same up here.

Paul, you've framed the question in terms of Oregon relative to other states: Oregon is a small state, and while there may be a few flyover visits from candidates in California, we're likely to be ignored by all but the fringe (e.g. Kucinich) who believe they can do better in Oregon than nationwide due to our liberal leanings.

But shouldn't we be comparing Oregon's February influence relative to its May influence? I have voted in four elections in which there was no Democratic incumbent, and in each case, the candidate I would have voted for had long since left the election. As a voter, this is really disenfranchizing. I don't actually give a fair fig wether we get lavished with attention, general-cycle-style, by the candidates. I'd just like my vote to count.

Furthermore, I believe Oregon could affect things. When we were debating this a few months back, I pointed out that many of the early states are GOP states. Given that candidates tend to tout "state wins," not delegate totals, Oregon could conceivably give momentum to the more progressive candidate.

So Kari, let me get this straight. We're gonna spend $2.8 million so that maybe some pollster might poll Oregonians before Feb. 5th to see how they say they voted as opposed to Californians say they will vote?

From what I can see, the DNC is quite serious about its threat to withhold delegates from Oregon if we move to Feb 5th. Even though other states with early voting/VBM will also be going early, it's not 100% of their voters. And the DNC sees that as the difference.

This has come up before and our people went to the DNC and fought for us. And the Rules Committee held its stance that we'd be penalized.

You think people feel disenfranchised now? How are they going to feel if their vote for president is merely a beauty pageant and means nothing - only the caucus votes do?

Don't get me wrong - I really, really, really want to be able to vote for my candidate. It was a huge pain in the ass not to be able to vote for my candidate in 2004 (Dean). I ended up voting for Kucinich in order to ensure a few delegates went that way.

The 2004 election was the first time I actually was voting in a primary where there was an actual contest for who the Dem candidate would be (Clinton was a no-brainer in 1996 and Gore in 2000). And when it came down to time to vote, we already knew who the candidate was.

But I also don't want to see Oregon penalized because we go to Feb 5.

We're gonna spend $2.8 million so that maybe some pollster might poll Oregonians before Feb. 5th to see how they say they voted as opposed to Californians say they will vote?

Actually, having sat through a legislative work session on this bill, the reasoning was...

We're going to spend $2.8 million so that Oregonians actually have a say in who the presidential candidates will be.

Excuse me Jenni, and all who support moving the voting date, but we will have the same say in who the presidential candidate will be regardless of when we vote. We are a small state when it comes to voting. The only possible way we make a bigger impact is if we vote after the big states vote and the result at that point is not settled. Then and only then do we get to play in the big leagues.

Actually, no we don't get the same say is in who the "presidential candidates" (my exact wording) will be regardless of when we vote.

We only get a say in who the "presidential candidates" (the Democrat and Republican selected by each party's process) if the nominees aren't already selected before we vote. As it was in 2004.

I'm not saying we should move to Feb 5 - I posted an item earlier about this. I'm just saying the $2.8 million is about more than pollsters, campaign jobs, and advertising dollars. It's about giving people a say in an election that isn't already decided long before we vote.

Like I said, I sat through the legislative work session on this bill. So I heard what House members on the Committee had to say about this bill. And it was definitely about giving people the same voting opportunity as other states - and that came from Ds and well as at least one R.

Let's be clear: the value of a state election in the early going has nothing to do with delegates and everything to do with momentum. Winning Oregon doesn't matter to a candidate in terms of delegates (5), but for a non-mainstream candidate, winning a state could mean keeping a campaign alive.

That said, Chuck is on to something. The likelihood that we exit February 5 with no clear winner is high. We could easily have four candidates with a state, and three with several. So then things grind along, and all of a sudden, lil Oregon looks like a fine pearl. Could happen.

Chuck is wise to the way of politics, as always....

"But forget February 5th. We'll pretty much nullify our impact if we join the herd."

But the herd is Feb 5th; we'd be mid-January.