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Legislators overrate juggling of dates

The tinkerers in the General Assembly want more clout for Ohio in next year's presidential primary.

What Ohio will be getting is more clout in the nudging of the United States toward a national presidential primary.

The Ohio Senate Tuesday voted to shift the 2000 primary from March 21 to March 7, so that Ohio would join New York, California and other states in a Super Tuesday in deciding the nominess of the two major parties for president.

But the people of all states would like to think they have clout. Their legislatures, to avoid being also-rans in the choosing of party nominees, can be expected to do some primary date shifting of their own.

By the time 2004 rolls around, there may be one day for presidential primary voting &emdash; the first Tuesday in March.

That may be what people would like. But it might not.

Lumping all the states together in some years might mean a loss of clout for a state, rather than a gain.

In Ohio, where we already had one date for presidential primaries and another almost two months later for non-presidential years, it simply would be welcome if the legislators stop fooling around with the date.

The importance they attribute to date juggling is far inflated from what they would find in the opinions of their constituents.

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