Presidential primary Feb . 19

OLYMPIA – If not a kingmaker, at least a tie-breaker.

That was the reasoning Monday in Olympia, where a nine-person panel settled on Feb. 19 as the date for the next Washington presidential primary.

Otherwise, Washingtonians would have been voting in late May, long after most of the country has already made the choice.

“All the candidates will pay more attention to our state” now, said Luke Esser, state GOP chairman. “This is a very, very happy day.”

Presidential primaries and caucuses, a winnowing-down process that once lasted nearly six months, have increasingly turned into a jostle at the starting line.

At least a dozen states – including heavyweights like California and New York – will pick their party front-runners on next year’s “Super Tuesday”: Feb. 5.

“I refer to this as ‘Stupid Tuesday,’ ” said state Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz, decrying the “rat race” Feb. 5 has become. According to the secretary of state’s office, 30 states select party front-runners by Feb. 5 or are considering doing so. If states wait much later than that, the thinking goes, their votes won’t matter.

“You go too late and you’re getting kind of irrelevant there,” said Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, D-Spokane, a committee member.

Feb. 19, panel members said Monday, gives Washington the best chance of attracting candidates. In the lead-up to Super Tuesday, candidates will be focused on the most-populous states. Holding it on that date here, Secretary of State Sam Reed said, would leave Washington “lost in the crowd.”

But on Feb. 19 – when the only other state holding a primary is Wisconsin – Washington should have a much stronger role in the final selection. That’s particularly true if there’s no overwhelming party front-runner on Super Tuesday.

“Let’s face it, we’re gambling,” Reed told his fellow committee members Monday in a meeting at the Capitol. “We’re gambling it’s not going to be over on the fifth.”

Reed is also hoping to persuade Oregon and perhaps Idaho primaries on the same date in order to boost the odds of candidates coming here to discuss regional concerns. Idaho’s primary is slated for May 27.

The new date will have little effect on Democrats, who don’t use the results of the state’s $9 million primary to assign delegates to a candidate at the national convention in August 2008. Washington’s Democratic Party prefers the caucus system, deciding the matter with a statewide network of community meetings Feb. 9.

Republicans are splitting the difference: assigning half the delegates based on the primary vote. The other half will be allocated based on the GOP’s own caucuses, also Feb. 9.

“The caucuses are where the action is for the Democratic Party,” said Pelz. Caucuses force candidates to launch grassroots campaigns that respond to local voters, he said, rather than simply buying TV ads.

“We’re looking to keep the engagement, keep the passion in politics,” he said.

Brown said she’d rather have a half-and-half process like the Republicans are using. Yes, it’s good to have neighbors sitting down with neighbors to discuss politics, she said, but many simply won’t do it.

Pelz, however, said the national Democratic Party requires that the selection process be either a primary election or caucuses, not a mix of both.

Some Republicans have worried that since the election doesn’t count for Democrats, they’re more likely to take Republican ballots and try to sabotage the state’s pick for GOP front-runner.

“I think that’s baloney,” said Reed. There’s no evidence of organized or widespread “crossover voting” like that in the past, he said. Pelz said the party is urging Democrats to vote Democratic in the primary.

Monday’s vote was this year’s second try at settling on a primary date. The committee deadlocked in March, with Republicans holding out for Feb. 5 or 12 and Democrats wanting to hold the primary March 18.

Washington has repeatedly scheduled the presidential primary earlier than the May 27 date set in law. In 1996 and 2000, state officials held it months earlier. In 2004, state lawmakers simply canceled the primary, since Democrats didn’t plan to use the results and Republicans already had their presumptive nominee: George W. Bush.