New York Times article about new 2008 presidential primary schedule: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/us/politics/04florida.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Before election season even begins, why do prospective presidential nominees spend so much time in Iowa and New Hampshire? What is so important about Iowa and New Hampshire that causes politicians to flock there months (now, years) before an election is even on the horizon? As any savvy politician knows, these days, it is all about the early Iowa caucus and slightly later New Hampshire primary. Conventional wisdom holds that without a victory, or at least a strong showing, in these two early races, a candidacy might as well pull out of the race. With a strong victory in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is thought a candidate can ride on his momentum straight through to the nomination. The idea of momentum in presidential primary elections is remarkably close to the idea of an information cascade. Are the outcomes of presidential primary elections simply an information cascade set off by the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Indeed, whoever wins the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, the first two party contests in the country, has the momentum necessary to start an information cascade. This appears to have happened in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary season. Could the idea of an information cascade be used to generally predict the pattern of outcomes in the 2008 primary season? The only way that primaries could function as information cascades is if they occur sequentially. In the upcoming 2008 primary season, the traditional schedule of sequential primaries has changed. Over twenty states have moved up their primary dates to the first week of February, almost immediately after the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary. States are vying to be first to start the information cascade. However, an unintended consequence is that other states are moving up their primaries as well to the point that most states will now be having their primaries on the same day. Super Tuesday this year will be the biggest and earliest it has ever been, with more delegate heavy states getting in early to try to have a greater effect on the outcome. Thus, candidates will not be able to build as much momentum into a cascade because voters in many different states will be voting simultaneously and thus cannot take cues from each other. I would expect, then, that people will vote more in accordance with their personal calculations and values as opposed to simply jumping on the bandwagon, as appears to have been the case in the 2004 presidential primary.