Nevada caves, New Hampshire gets its way?

The Nevada Republican Central Committee met on Saturday and caved in to the pressure applied by the New Hampshire republicans and moved their primary back to the beginning of February. New Hampshire called for a boycott of the Nevada caucus. The reasons for the boycott were rather weak. New Hampshire is traditionally first in the nation to hold a primary, was the main argument and coming in second was the concern that people would not have time to learn about the candidates. Not having time to get to know candidates almost made me laugh; we have seen multiple debates featuring all of the candidates and most have been campaigning for several months now. To logically say the Nevada caucus would keep voters from getting to know the candidates is ridiculous. Does traditionally first automatically mean you are always first? No, especially when the Iowa caucus is being held on January 3, before the expected date of New Hampshire’s primary; which is expected to be held on January 10.
There is more to this than we know and I don’t think we will ever really know what was behind the outrage of Nevada moving its caucus. New Hampshire state law requires that it hold its primary seven days before any similar contest, but in 1996 and 2000 Delaware held its primary within seven days of New Hampshire. While New Hampshire contends that the Nevada caucus is a similar contest so it must hold its primary 7 days prior to Nevada, which would have made January 7 open to New Hampshire. That was not good enough for New Hampshire, they used the bogus claim I mentioned above about no time to learn about the candidates. Regardless of that, the Iowa caucus is scheduled for January 3, which should mean that to keep its ‘first in the nation’ status New Hampshire would have to hold its primary in December. It does not end there, New Hampshire does not consider the Iowa caucus as a similar contest so Iowa’s date does not matter. Both Nevada and Iowa hold a caucus, but only the Nevada caucus is a similar contest to New Hampshire, what am I missing? A primary is very similar to the general election, the voting booth is open and you vote for the candidate of your choosing. A caucus is much like a meeting. Members all get together at one place and join a group of others supporting the same candidate and decide their delegates to the national convention.
Four states were granted early voting status from the Republican National Committee; these are, in no particular order, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Iowa and Nevada. The one missing is Florida, Florida is not an early voting state and started the whole calendar jumping but only Nevada is being singled out. At the end of September, Iowa Republican Party Chairman said, “The four sanctioned, early states have been very clear that we will move together, if necessary, to ensure order as outlined in RNC rules. If we are forced to change our dates together, we will.” I guess that solidarity was overstated as no one came out to boycott Florida. New Hampshire had no problem with boycott Nevada, they have a website that you can sign the petition, but there is no boycott Florida. Nevada holds a caucus, just like Iowa but according to New Hampshire, Iowa is OK but Nevada is not. Nevada gets shafted by the other early states, the Republican National Committee and a majority of the Presidential candidates.