When Michigan and Florida declared they were moving up their primary elections to January, it caused some political problems. It caused alarm for the Arab American Institute, which is holding a national conference in Dearborn next month. The political tension almost prevented presidential candidates from appearing at the seminal event.

Traditionally, New Hampshire and Iowa are the first two states to hold primaries, the elections that determine who will represent the two major parties in the presidential election.

Iowa’s caucuses are set for January 14th. Michigan’s legislature voted to hold their primary on January 15th. Florida’s will be later in the month.

New Hampshire is yet to announce. South Carolina and Nevada traditionally came after Iowa and New Hampshire. To make matters more interesting, several other states have contemplated moving their dates as well.

The order of the primaries and caucuses is important because it

essentially lets those states determine who has the early lead. That lead can impact other state’s decisions. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) told USA Today, “sometimes those two preseason contests (Iowa and New Hampshire) pick the winner.”

That is why candidates spend so much time and energy campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The state governments in Florida and Michigan defied the wishes of the Democratic National Committee, while the Republican National Committee mulled over its response. The Democratic candidates signed a pledge promising not to campaign in Florida and Michigan. The parties may decide to strip the state’s delegates of all their votes in the national party conventions which is where the presidential candidates are selected.

This agreement threatened to hurt the impact of Arab-Americans on the next presidential election. If the candidates do not campaign in Michigan, this will diminish the power of Arab-Americans to have a say in who runs for president. It could prevent candidates from reaching out to the one of the largest Arab American communities in the country.

However, they will be able to appear at the largest Arab American electoral event in the nation thanks to a waiver agreed to by state party heads.

The Arab-American Institute (AAI) is an organization that “represents the policy and community interests of Arab Americans throughout the United States and strives to promote Arab American participation in the U.S. electoral system.”

AAI is planning its national conference in Dearborn later next month. Every four years AAI holds its major political event in Michigan to coincide with the presidential race. It seeks to “prepare an electoral agenda and mobilize the community in advance of the presidential elections.”

AAI’s annual conference is the seminal event for Arab-Americans interested in hearing directly from the candidates.

In the last Dearborn conference in 2003, every major Democratic candidate spoke. The campaign manager for Bush-Cheney presented as well. AAI’s 1999 conference featured then Vice President Al Gore and Republican Sen. John McCain. This was a landmark event for the Arab-American community. For many years, presidential candidates had made no effort to reach out to or respond to Arab-Americans.

AAI appealed to state party heads to allow candidates who signed this pledge to participate in the conference, according to a New York Times article. An Iowa Democratic Party spokeswoman told the paper, “We believe the Arab American community is an important constituency and we are sensitive to their concerns. For this specific pre-scheduled national event, we find the Arab American Institute’s request acceptable.”

James Zogby, the president of AAI, said, “our meeting is national in scope and it provides the only forum where Arab Americans can hear directly from the candidates on national issues of importance to our community.”

For more information about AAI and the conference, visit www.aaiusa.org.