Schwarzenegger signs bill moving up primary election

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The stage is now set for what could be a de facto national primary day with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signing a bill Thursday that moves up California's presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008.

As many as two dozen states could end up holding their caucuses and primaries on Feb. 5, spurred in great part by the action of the nation's most populous state. But the impact also is already being felt within California, where voters have been wooed by a series of visits by all the major presidential candidates.

"Just by talking about moving the presidential primary has already elevated California's status," Schwarzenegger said, just before signing the bill, SB 113, in the courtyard of the Leland Stanford mansion in Sacramento, the site of the first visit by a sitting president to California, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880. "Moving up the presidential primary from June to February means California will have the influence it deserves in choosing America's next presidential candidates."

California immediately becomes the giant among states that have already set their primaries or caucuses for Feb. 5, overshadowing Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Missouri and Utah. New Mexico and Idaho Democrats have set their presidential caucuses for Feb. 5, and the West Virginia GOP plans to hold its state convention, which selects presidential candidates, on that date.

But other large states, including Florida, Illinois, Michigan and New Jersey are among the 15 other states considering moving their contests to Feb. 5. If that happens, candidates would have to spend time and money there, also, possibly diminishing California's impact on picking the presidential nominees.

"I just don't think it's all that it's made out to be," said Republican strategist Ken Khachigian, a veteran of eight presidential campaigns. "It won't have the effect that everybody wants."

Still, the alternative would be to sit on the sidelines in June, watching idly as the rest of the nation chooses the next nominees, said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist and also a veteran of presidential campaigns.

"If nothing was done, and we still would have had a June primary, all the candidates would have just slipped in and out of the state for fundraisers and not do all the public events they're doing," Carrick said. "We're now way beyond that. They've got to work California into their strategy. It's significantly different than if they'd left things with a June primary."

California's assets are in its delegates: 440 in the winner-take-all system for Democrats. That's 10 percent of the 4,366 national delegates. Republicans award their 173 delegates to winners of each Congressional district.