Seen in the Washington Post:
In 2008, Iowa will still have the first caucus and New Hampshire the first primary. But as many as four other states will be added to early weeks of the season — one or two between Iowa and New Hampshire, and one or two immediately after. On Thursday, Democratic leaders from 11 states and the District of Columbia began bidding for the available slots.[...]
Diversity — demographic, geographic and economic — was a principal selling point, because one big complaint about Iowa and New Hampshire is the absence of minorities. For more than three hours, members of delegations reeled off a blizzard of statistics on the size of their Hispanic or African American or Asian American or Native American populations, or the strength of their union movements, another factor Democrats are studying.
Setting aside for the moment my gripe of states funding political parties’ primaries (at least in states with closed primaries), I think this potential reshuffling is a good idea. It’s nice to see that Democratic party leaders are thinking about how to optimize the primary process to identify the “best” candidate, rather than leaving the decision really in the hands of a few nonrepresentative states.