GOP threatens New Hampshire

GOP pressures New Hampshire

This is an unexpected, good for Iowa twist:

Republicans are pressuring New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner to put his state's primary late enough to allow Iowa's caucus to take place in January, and are threatening the state with the loss of its favored status as the first-in-the-nation primary if he doesn't do so.

"I don’t think it takes a genius to realize that if New Hampshire goes so early that Iowa winds up during the holidays, there may be calls on whether we should scrap this whole system, and whether or not New Hampshire should even be able to go early next time," said a Republican source familiar with the proceedings. "Where his head is right now is ‘I have no choice,’ but he does. New Hampshire has gone from being the victim to everyone saying 'you're going to [mess] this up even more."

The source said that if New Hampshire moves its primary up to Jan. 3 rather than Jan. 10, the state would likely face backlash from members of the Republican National Committee. Republicans are arguing that the next "similar election" is the South Carolina primary, which would make the Jan. 10 date viable for New Hampshire.

So three scenarios:

Gardner says screw you and does what he wants. I've said that's counterproductive in the long run, and now the GOP is explicitly saying so.

Gardner caves on the seven days between Nevada and New Hampshire and goes with the Tuesday the 10th, or

Gardner goes with Saturday the 8th and Iowa caves, like we did last time, on eight days between us and New Hampshire.

Either one of those two us on Monday 1/2 or Tuesday 1/3. This is all moving a lot faster than I expected. Let's get it done so us locals can start booking rooms.

While the Republicans are making threats, shouldn't they also be talking about their convention site?