Heard on MSNBC today...Texas might actually come into play as a primary state

Slate Magazine
The Late State Gets the WormThe unexpected ins and outs of the 2008 primary calendar.
By Jeff Greenfield
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008

If Feb. 5 produces split results, with no clear winner—a reasonable possibility in both parties—it will hand a whole lot more power to the states that come later. Here's the list. Kansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, and Washington State on Feb. 9. Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia on Feb. 12. Hawaii and Wisconsin on Feb. 19. Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Texas on March 4, Wyoming and Mississippi also in March, and Pennsylvania on April 22. These contests will have a good shot at meriting the kind of attention from candidates that gets a state on the receiving end of a promise worth its weight in ethanol.

Obviously, a 50-state nomination process can't stretch out to one primary a week—not unless we want the whole thing to last until, say, Thanksgiving. Since we have to have dates on which multiple states vote, a series of regional primaries makes sense. A date that combines Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas is geographically and culturally sensible. Putting New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut together would make good financial sense, since all three share an expensive media market.