(Des Moines, IA) The Iowa Caucuses are being moved to January 24, 2000. Iowa Republican party chairman Kayne Robinson Thursday afternoon announced Republican caucuses will be held on that date rather than on January 31, which is the day after the recently re-scheduled New Hampshire primary.
Tomorrow, the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party will ask the Democratic National Committee’s rules and by-laws panel to approve moving the date for democratic caucuses to January 24, too.
“We hope to make an announcement tomorrow afternoon after that conference call and hopefully we’ll have some good news to say that we’ve been officially able to move our date to the 24th,” said Kim Warkentin, executive director of the Iowa Democratic Party.
Robinson, the Iowa Republican Party’s chairman, said it was just unworkable to have Iowa and New Hampshire’s presidential contests back-to-back. Robinson said there would be no chance for a candidate to capitalize on a good showing in Iowa, or to recover from a bad finish.
“If there is no time in between the two, essentially it becomes one event and that’s probably not good for us. It’s not good for New Hampshire and it’s probably not good for America,” Robinson said during a Thursday afternoon news conference at party headquarters in Des Moines. “I think the rest of the country needs to see how these candidates react to wins and losses and what they do and they get a chance to see it here in Iowa one way and a slightly different way in New Hampshire.”
Secretary of State Chet Culver called reporters to his statehouse office to declare the party actions a “workable solution” to the chaos over when to hold the Iowa Caucuses.
“It is our hope that this will be the last press conference that we will have on the date of the Iowa Caucus,” Culver told reporters.
This is the fourth date change for the 2000 Caucuses. Iowa’s Caucuses have traditionally been the kick-off event of presidential campaigns since 1976.