New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner has set the date for the New Hampshire First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary. For the formal filing of candidacies, that is. Filing will begin on Monday, October 15th, in his State House 2nd floor office. It will be a busy place that morning. It goes through Friday, November 2nd.

In past years, the filing period for candidates entering the NH Presidential Primary was set by law to begin on the first Monday of November, for a period of three weeks.

Last year, looking toward the possibility that the date of our Primary for the 2008 election might well need to be set for early January, or even for December, I wrote a bill to allow the Secretary of State to accept filings of candidates anytime he felt was necessary. This year he's using that new law.

The real "PLEDGE" we need from the candidates is that they run here, and by getting Republican and Democratic candidates for file their candidacies and allow us to put their names on the Primary ballot guarantees they'll be running here, despite any blackmail either the Republican or Democratic National Committee may try. That was a purpose behind the bill I sponsored last year, which passed the House and Senate and was signed by Governor John Lynch.

By Bill Gardner opening the date for filings in mid-October, he may be messaging that he expects that the New Hampshire Primary date may well be very early in January, or even into December. That might allow Iowa to set their Caucuses a full eight-days-or-more before New Hampshire's Primary, AND guarantee that we will be "...7 days or more..." before another similar election, as our own state law requires.

He might even figure out a way now to set the New Hampshire Primary at least a week before any other event -- including South Carolina, Michigan, and Nevada, AND still allow plenty of time for Iowa to be eight days or more before us.

Bill Gardner is an innovative guy, with out-of-the-box thinking, and through our state law we've given him the tools he's needed to do what needs to be done to keep New Hampshire first-and-relevant to the Presidential selection process every four years.

New Hampshire first by a week or more, with Iowa not on our back. Wouldn't that be an interesting win-win that would make New Hampshire's Primary more relevant than anyone would have expected a couple of years ago when the Democratic National Committee began playing with the calendar?

It will be fascinating to see how all this develops in the next few weeks.

Go to it, Bill!

Posted by Jim Splaine at 10:05 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Much, much too much, has been made in Blogs and news reports nationwide that Hillary Clinton had two different speeches over the Labor Day Weekend -- one in New Hampshire highlighting Civil Unions recently approved by the Legislature as well as the state's long support of the right of women to choose, and another in Iowa that, well, didn't mention either.

The New York Times went as far as to headline their story "Clinton's Altered Iowa Speech."

So what? There are a lot of issues out there for our candidates to talk about. I'm gay and I support Civil Unions -- and for that matter full marriage equality -- and I've been in favor of women's choice since my first vote on the issue in the NH Legislature in 1969. BUT I'm also interested in Iraq, health care, education, the environment, the corporate culture vs. labor issues, fair immigration laws, ethics in government, and better campaign finance disclosure laws.

All gays and lesbians I know are also interested in those issues. Sure, we want equality of rights -- who wouldn't? But we also want other important things for our non-gay friends too.

In interest of full disclosure, I'm a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I'm pleased she's a supporter of Civil Unions and women's choice. Very pleased. But I want to hear her talk about those other issues too. So do the voters of Iowa. So do the voters of America. That she doesn't mention everything everywhere is fine.

In fact, all of our Democratic Presidential candidates support Civil Unions or marriage equality, and women's choice. They have said so on nationally-televised debates, and I'm proud of each of them. But America wants to also hear each of our candidates explain why Bush's War isn't good for our future, how we can provide national security without losing our privacy and civil rights, and how universal health care is a necessary thing to accomplish.

America will also want to know why each of the Republican candidates want a more powerful government to supplant a woman's choice, and want a more powerful government that will continue to promote inequality toward gays and lesbians.

Quite interesting.

Posted by Jim Splaine at 10:03 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)