It’s understandable that Florida Republican elected leaders will no longer be pushing for an early presidential primary date. This time it would hurt. While the principle hasn’t changed, the vested interest implications have.
The principle is self evident. It’s still outlandish that America’s biggest and most diverse battleground state should be yielding early impact to the likes of Iowa. The country’s third largest state, one that demographically looks like America, waits in the wings while the undersized white-farmer-evangelical-caucus crowd provides early momentum or a screeching halt to somebody’s candidacy. This remains a sham–not romanticized, small-town democracy.
But we know why Florida pols didn’t flip off the RNC and its primary calendar as it did in 2008 and 2012. This time the Sunshine State would have lost almost all of its nearly 100 delegates. Tell that to a likely favorite son candidate. This time Florida is expected to orchestrate a winner-take-all, mid-March primary.