WASHINGTON — It's more than two years before the next Iowa caucuses, but the first meaningful votes in the 2008 Democratic presidential race will be cast this week.
On Saturday, a Democratic commission will decide whether to challenge the dominant role that Iowa and New Hampshire play in determining the party's presidential nominee. The panel is strongly leaning toward a plan aimed at diluting those states' influence by authorizing other contests in between Iowa's caucuses, which start the nomination race, and New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary.
Such a change could increase the influence of blacks and Latinos, who cast few votes in Iowa and New Hampshire, in the Democratic presidential race. And it would allow Democrats from other regions, most likely the South and Southwest, to join Iowa and New Hampshire in winnowing the field of contenders.
Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), the commission's co-chairman, said the panel was "fully appreciative of the value" of close contact between voters and candidates "and of the tradition Iowa and New Hampshire has developed in that area."
But, he said, "we have a second goal ... which is to have an early [nominating] season that attracts wider participation from a wider range of constituencies."
The proposal inevitably has provoked furious resistance in New Hampshire, whose state law requires it to hold its primary seven days before any "similar election."
William Gardner, New Hampshire secretary of state, said he was ready to advance the date of the state's primary to preserve its position at the front of the line. "We are going to do whatever we have to do to maintain and preserve what New Hampshire has had," he said.
States have the authority to set the dates for their primaries and caucuses. But the national political parties can penalize them -- for instance, by reducing their representation at the presidential nominating conventions -- if they schedule their votes outside the calendar set by party leaders.
The privileged positions of Iowa and New Hampshire have long provoked resentment from Democrats elsewhere. Many complain that they give the two states disproportionate influence; victories by then-Vice President Al Gore in 2000 and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004 in each state effectively settled those races.
"No two states should have a monopoly on the first primary and caucus," Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said. "A lot of other states have issues that are important to them, and ought to have an opportunity to present those issues to the candidates."
