Should RPI Make Republican Candidates Take the Pledge?

I think the Democrats are on to something--or at least some of them anyway. Before you move onto another site, hear me out.

My last post I talked a bit about the jumping primary schedule. Both the DNC and the RNC have been trying very hard to keep states from jumping ahead, mainly by threatening to take away a state's half or full (as in the case of Florida and the DNC) convention delegates. It doesn't appear to have done much yet as Michigan appears to have jumped to Jan 15th, and Wyoming to January 5th

So why not use the candidates themselves to keep the schedule as set by the national committees? You may have heard that the chairs of the Iowa, New Hampshire,Nevada, and South Carolina Democrat Parties sent letters to the Democrat presidential candidates asking them to pledge to keep the primary schedule as set by the DNC. Pretty much all of them, including Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, have taken the pledge. Bill Richardson this weekend even proclaimed that God wanted Iowa to be first in the nation.

My question is why are Republicans not doing the same thing?

John McCain probably came the closest of any of the Republican hopefuls this weekend when he said that the traditional spot for Iowa and New Hampshire should remain the way it has been, and said he would consider skipping any state that moves to disrupt the calendar. In his stop at Jewell on Sunday night, he said that Iowa and New Hampshire were the best at determining character in candidates, and by not having us and NH up front means that candidates will not have that one-on-one vetting and political campaigns will be run almost only as advertisements on TV and the internet.

Why shouldn't Ray Hoffman and his counterparts in New Hampshire and South Carolina send out letters asking candidates to pledge to not campaign in states to move ahead in the schedule? RPI wasn't shy about expressing its feelings on McCain, Giuliani and Thompson skipping the Iowa Straw Poll. Why should it be shy now?

This would probably be the most effective way to stop the calendar shuffling, and it will mean more if all of the candidates in both parties pledge to not campaign in the jumping states. One would think that a state wouldn't choose to jump ahead if they know it won't bring any more candidate face time than they currently have. But it needs to be done ASAP, before Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signs the bill that would move their primary up, and before any other states decide to jump ahead as well.

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