Michigan's parties are on the verge of an agreement to move up their state's primary, according to Michael D. Shear at WaPo's The Trail:

If the two parties pick Jan. 15, they would be leapfrogging over South Carolina, where the Republican Party recently chose to hold their primary on Jan. 19.

By moving to Jan. 15, Michigan would likely force New Hampshire to move to Jan. 8 thanks to a New Hampshire state law requiring parties to hold primaries at least a week before any similar voting in another state.

That could in turn force Iowa into December because of a law there which requires that state's caucus to be held eight days prior to the New Hampshire voting.

Read the whole post at the above link. Hey, you don't think South Carolina is going to take this lying down, do you? (Well, the Republicans, anyway - SC is one of the few states where the parties can set their own dates). They've already moved up once to counter Florida.

The only way this madness ends is with a Grand Compromise. Federal legislation, which some have called for, is inappropriate and probably unconstitutional. For the record, my suggested compromise:

Allow Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina to keep their early status. These states will not agree to anything else - IA & NH have state laws requiring it - and no compromise is possible which doesn't recognize that. I propose adding Nevada to the early list so that a smaller state in each region is represented in the early going.

After that, divide up the weeks until the first Tuesday in June, and assign them by lot for the first cycle. For the second cycle, the states in the first group go all the way to the end, in June, and the second group moves to first, etc. Repeat until the first group is back to first and it all starts again - although this process would take half a century, more of less. That way each of the other ("non-early") states will have a chance to vote early and last and everywhere in between.

Regional or national primaries would only further enhance the role of early fundraising. They would not stop the race from beginning early, because candidates would scramble to collect enough to be viable and start whenever they had to in order to succeed. Lesser-known candidates would have little or no chance under such a system.

Got a better idea? I'm all ears . . .