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Early Primary: Will Your Vote Count?

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By WILLIAM MARCH The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 6, 2008

Starting Jan. 14, Floridians will get to do something they haven't done in more than a decade: Cast a meaningful vote in a presidential primary.

Because of scheduling conflicts with the national parties, Florida primary votes won't count fully as they're intended to - that is, by picking delegates to vote at your party's national convention to make your candidate the nominee.

A Democratic primary vote won't produce any delegates to help your candidate win. The delegate-picking power of Republican votes will be cut in half.

But the Florida votes will give the top-performing candidates a huge psychological boost and headlines nationwide - the precious commodity political junkies call "momentum."

"Florida is beautifully positioned right before Feb. 5, and everybody remembers it was the deciding state in 2000," University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato said. For the last half of this month, "It ought to be the focus of the country politically - this time, hopefully in a positive way."

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