Meanwhile, Somewhere Else

Let's cleanse the palate a little bit and talk some presidential politics. Specifically, this out-of-nowhere idea of moving the state primary up to Feb. 5, from some God forsaken March date.

This idea was started by Tom Donnelly's pal, Secretary of State Bill Galvin, and today Gov. Deval Patrick and House Speaker Sal DiMasi said today they aren't opposed to the idea.

Galvin has two reasons: There are five state special elections scheduled for the Feb. 5 date, and it would save some cash to run the primary on the same day. But it also suddenly gets Massachusetts back into the primary game.

At the current March 4 date, the Mass primary would be a sad, sorry, forgotten affair, with the nominees for both parties likely locked up. According to the Globe story linked above, 36 states would have held its primaries by then. That would be like turning on last night's Celtics' game in the fourth quarter.

Now, if Massachusetts moves to Feb. 5, it joins 21 other states on what would certainly be dubbed "Super Tuesday," and would likely be the super-est Tuesday ever. Sadly, big states like New York, New Jersey, California and Illinois are planning on going that day, lowering Massachusetts' influence on the day.

It would take all day to figure out how many delegates the state has in comparison to other states (trust me, I started the process), but Massachusetts is 13th on the list of Electoral College states with 12 votes. So, that's consider that a general spot for the state on the delegate importance list.

That's nice, but California has 55 EC votes, NY 31, and Illinois 21. Those three states are also home to the first (NYC), second (LA), and third (Chicago) largest media markets in the country. Nine of the 12 states with more EC voters than Mass are slated for Feb. 5. Florida is the week before. Only Ohio (20 votes) and Virginia (15) are later.

In all, right now (according to Open Secrets), there would be 213 Electoral College votes up for grabs on Feb. 5, plus Mass' 12. So Mass would be roughly 5 percent of the votes available that day (using the flawed EC math, but it's probably pretty close. If you can figure out the true numbers, for both parties, have at it).

In short, a move to Feb. 5 certainly increases the state's influence in the election, but probably doesn't mean that Hillary Clinton will be holding events at Wallace Civic Center any time soon. You want to see the candidates? Make the trip to Nashua in the next few months.

Despite that rather depressing view, it's probably worth Massachusetts to make the move. If nothing else, that air of "it's over" would hopefully be missing -- or seriously taken out of the equation. It also -- and perhaps more importantly -- continues the de facto move to a national primary, which where this all probably heading anyway.