Iowa and New Hampshire

new hampshire was the first state to hold public primaries.

iowa was where buddy holly died. twice, I heard.

I'm grew up in Iowa and I couldn't tell you. It's the only time ever national politicians give a shit about our state. The 5 (or is it 4 now? I think they got downgraded) electoral votes it's worth are mostly ignored during the stretch run of most campaigns.

this may not be true, but i think that once upon a time the state governments of each state decided when their particular primary would be held. i don't think it was a national plan.

dud and dud.

I like the fact this is on ILM

Don't know about Iowa.

New Hampshire: back inna day -- way, way back inna day -- they set the primary early to coincide with Town Meeting day (possibly it was the town meeting for just one town, like Concord; towns don't have their town meetings all on the same day anymore). After people started making such a big deal out of it being early, it was put into the state constitution that the NH primary will take place before any other: if some other state up and reschedules theirs, the NH automatically gets rescheduled so it's still first.

Iowa gets around that because theirs is a caucus, not a primary.

You would not believe what a big deal this all is up there.

they keep moving the primaries earlier, soon they will take place a week after the previous general election.