Reply #1: Kerry: Don't change primary calendar Iowa first [View All]

[whometense]

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060729/NEWS09/607290342

The visiting senator says Iowa and New Hampshire should stay first, but he stays mum on Nevada.

By THOMAS BEAUMONT
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

July 29, 2006


Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, traveling in Iowa Friday, said the 2008 presidential primary calendar proposed by a national party committee last weekend risks complicating the nomination process.

"I'm in favor of Iowa as the first caucus and New Hampshire as the first primary," Kerry told The Des Moines Register after testifying in Iowa City at a Senate hearing on cancer research.

"Now if they stick something in between ... I think that's their choice," the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee added. "But it makes the system more complicated and probably slightly less democratic."

<...>

Kerry stopped short of saying he would object to a final schedule that included a Nevada caucus between Iowa and New Hampshire, which the Democratic National Committee will consider when it votes on Aug. 19.


<...>

"Every poll anywhere right now is meaningless," Kerry said. "You are talking to a guy who was 30 points down in Iowa for six months. I told you they were meaningless then. Right now, they are even more meaningless. People aren't focused on this."