Joe McQuaid of the New Hampshire Union-Leader rages against Democrats for changing their primary schedule:

NEW HAMPSHIRE means so little to the Democratic Party that it added crude insult to great injury to the Granite State over the weekend.

It not only confirmed its plan to ignore more than 50 years of tradition and grassroots people politics here. It ordered its 2008 Presidential candidates not to campaign here if we continue to protect our first-in-the-nation primary.

Secretary of State William Gardner had the right response to all this:

"It's insulting and disrespectful to the people of New Hampshire for Chairman Dean to threaten potential Presidential candidates if they dare to set foot on the soil in this state.''

It is also typical of the Number One Liar in the Democratic Party. For it was Howard Dean who claimed to want to protect our primary when he was campaigning here for his party's nomination in 2004.

Meanwhile, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register says the primary shift may produce exactly the opposite effect the DNC intended with respect to Iowa:

If the purpose of the change was to diminish the significance of the Iowa caucuses, it failed. Packing so many events so closely after the Iowa events just makes Iowa more important. There is not enough time between these caucuses and primaries for a candidate to recover from a setback here -- or to slow the winner's momentum.

Yepsen goes on to speculate on the shifts that are bound to happen as New Hampshire looks at ways to preserve its status as the country's first primary.