Will 'Super Penalty' protect the caucuses?

The RNC's Rules Committee has come up with a "super penalty" for any states that try to leapfrog Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada at the head of the 2016 primary calendar:

The rules committee had previously approved a measure protecting those four states from being penalized if they are forced to move up their primary dates to stay ahead of other rule-breaking states, as they did last winter.

But on Wednesday, the rules committee went a step further, approving a so-called "super penalty" that would strip offending primary states of all but nine delegates to the convention.

That means that just nine Republican delegates, instead of their usual 99, would be up for grabs in Florida in the next presidential cycle if the state blows up the calendar and holds a primary – vastly reducing Florida's influence on the nominating process.

There's also talk of "double-secret probation." The full RNC must still vote on the super penalty.

Of course, what they can't vote on is having the nerve to enforce it, which is what has been sorely lacking in the past. Without that, Florida simply shrugs and marches into January.

If I were Iowa Republicans, I'd just schedule the caucuses for Jan. 4, 2016, and get it over with.

On the bright side, I don't see anything within the coverage of this super penalty business that suggests fallout from the Iowa's GOP spinning butt-fall in figuring out and reporting who actually won the caucuses. Yet.