January 15 Presidential primary?

(Nirmal has included a couple updates on my cross-post at Michigan Liberal. It looks like it will be moved.)

The Presidential primary process could get interesting really fast. Daily Kos quotes this bit from The Atlantic:

Michigan could hold a statewide primary on Jan 15, if a deal reached this morning by top Republicans and Democrats in the state passes muster with state legislators. Michigan political sources say that Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Sen. Carl Levin are very close to a deal with House Speaker Andy Dillon (D) and Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R). It's not clear whether the state parties are on board, yet, but if the legislature decides to pass a bill changing the primary date, and then Gov. Granholm signs it, there's not much dissidents can do.

Markos adds:

The DNC can threaten the state with not seating its delegates, but similar threats hurled at Florida have fallen on deaf ears. It really doesn't have that much power to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

So this means that New Hampshire would have to move its primary into the first week of January (featuring hung-over voters), while Iowa would have to revisit its decision to keep its caucus in 2008. Yet moving it up to 2007 would turn it into a glorified straw poll.

Well, what are your thoughts?

I see this both ways. I have not been happy about Michigan's caucus being later than most state's. For many reasons (beyond vanity), our state deserves more influence in the process: Environmental, economic, and other major issues affect Michigan more than they do most other states.

On the other hand, I'm starting to question which is crazier: Bruce Patterson, or the presidential primary process.