2012 and the GOP's Ohio Plan

Marc Ambinder has the latest from the RNC's Rules Committee in scheduling primaries and caucuses f0r 2012. According to Ambinder:

The plan would carve out exemptions for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. It would allow 15 additional states -- small states -- to hold contests in February... and then in March, there'd be a rotating series of big states.

And Chris Cillizza at the Fix has a bit more detailed description:

The Ohio plan would, in essence, split the nomination fight into three distinct tiers: early states, small states and large states.

The first would be the traditional early states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, which would be allowed under the plan to retain their status at the front of the nominating calendar. The exemption for the early states is a new wrinkle for Republicans, following in the footsteps of the Democrats who currently recognize the primacy of the traditional early-voting bastions.

That quartet of votes would be followed -- in the third week of February -- by a window of votes for 19 small states comprising 50 electoral votes.

The final piece of the Ohio plan encompasses the large states, which would begin voting in three clusters
in the first week of March. The large states, according to the Ohio plan, would be parceled out into three pods based on geographic region and would rotate their relative voting positions every four years.

I'm sure there are some very happy Hawkeye and Granite Staters.