Biden pushes South Carolina as first primary state, elevates Georgia and Michigan
The tectonic decision to radically remake his party’s presidential nominating calendar for 2024 came as a shock to party officials and state leaders who had been lobbying hard to gain a place in the early calendar
South Carolina Must Not Be Destroyed. 😁
This is inspired strategy by PoJo, inspired. He is old but this is, well, as WaPo terms it, "tectonic." This is also payback for Rep. Jim Clyburn's trajectory-changing endorsement of Biden in 2020. And it is also lonngg overdue reform.
By breaking with decades of tradition, Biden’s move is meant to signal his party’s commitment to elevating more variety — demographic, geographic and economic — in the early nominating process. Iowa, a largely White state that historically held the nation’s first Democratic caucus and experienced embarrassing problems tabulating results in 2020, would have no early role in the Biden plan.
The president explains in a letter he sent to the Democratic National Committee:
“For decades, Black voters in particular have been the backbone of the Democratic Party but have been pushed to the back of the early primary process. We rely on these voters in elections but have not recognized their importance in our nominating calendar. It is time to stop taking these voters for granted, and time to give them a louder and earlier voice in the process.”
He said caucuses were “restrictive and anti-worker” because they require voters “to spend significant amounts of time” on one night gathering to choose candidates in person, “disadvantaging hourly workers and anyone who does not have the flexibility to go to a set location at a set time.”
I am cackling with delight at this bold, shrewd gambit. This motherfucker is old, but he just flipped the table on Republicans. Iowa and New Hampshire have 10 electoral votes combined. South Carolina has got 9 all by its gamecock. Georgia has 16, Michigan another 16. As he told told the mayor of Fort Myers Beach after Ian, "Nobody fucks with a Biden."
It's also just flat-out the right thing to do.
“It appears as though President Biden is not only transforming our country. He’s transforming the way in which we nominate presidents. He is going to have a lasting impact on America.”-Trav Robertson, chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party, wrote in a text message.
Indeed he has, Trav. Hallelujah!
