GOP expected to OK early Iowa caucuses

Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses are expected to get the green light from the Republican National Committee Friday (Aug. 6).

The Republican National Committee, which is meeting in Kansas City today and Friday, is expected to approve a 2012 presidential nominating calendar that will put the Iowa caucuses in the lead-off spot. A two-thirds vote of the full RNC is required.

Iowa Republicans and Democrats are looking to hold their caucuses Monday, Feb. 6, according to their respective party chairs Matt Strawn and Sue Dvorsky.

The RNC plan calls for the Iowa caucuses to be followed by the New Hampshire primary eight days later with the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary later in February.

Other states would have to wait until at least March 1 to have their contests.

Dvorsky expects the DNC to approve the calendar when it meets in Aug. 19-21 in St. Louis. A DNC panel earlier voted unanimously to hold the New Hampshire primary Feb. 14, Nevada caucus Feb. 18 and the South Carolina primary Feb 28.

Since 1972 the Iowa caucuses have been the first major electoral event in the nation.

Both parties want to spread out an increasingly frontloaded selection process to avoid what some fear has become a national primary that determines a nominee before all states have had a chance to participate. In 2008, the Iowa caucuses were moved up to Jan. 3 to stay ahead of states attempting to leap-frog to the front of the selection process.

The proposal, which was designed in part by former Iowa Republican Chairman Brian Kennedy of Bettendorf, is also designed to spread the process out into the spring, rather than allowing states to rush to the front of the line and create what GOP officials here have described as national primary.

The proposed rules also call for delegates to be awarded to the contestants proportionally rather than all delegates going to the winner.