Southern Republicans Want More Say In Picking A Nominee

Southern Republicans have not always been too happy with the candidates chosen by their party. Mitt Romney is a prime example. Romney was too "moderate" for Southern tastes, but by the time a lot of Southern States held their primary he already had a significant lead over more extremist candidates. Now some Southern Republicans are trying to change that.

They want to give the South a bigger voice in choosing the party's nominee in 2016. They can't move their state's primary up to challenge the caucus in Iowa or the primary in New Hampshire, because they would be punished severely by the national party if they tried that -- so they've come up with a different plan. They want to Southern States to band together and hold an early primary, giving the South a lot more clout early in the nominating process.

The two most populous states in the South, Texas and Florida, have already put their 2016 primaries on March 1st (the earliest date allowed by the national party). Now five other Southern States (Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas) are trying to move their primaries to that same date. The combination of these seven states would have significant clout, and would give teabaggers more say in who the nominee should be.

This would give more of an advantage to extremist right-wingers early in the process (Cruz, Paul, Huckabee, Santorum, Carson, etc.), and would tend to work against more moderate right-wingers (Portman, Bush, Christie, Walker, etc.). And it would increase the liklihood that the Republican Party would nominate an extremist candidate -- a candidate that would scare the hell out of most Americans.

I hope they get it done, because it would just intensify the internal war going on in the Republican Party -- and could seriously damage what little hope they have of retaking the White House in 2016.

NOTE -- This would also mean the Democrats in those states would be voting on March 1st, but that wouldn't matter much. Southern Democrats are much more in tune with their national party (and Democrats in other states).