State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz says his party will stick to its caucuses for selecting presidential delegates and will not use the primary even if lawmakers keep it on the calendar.

And that means Gov. Christine Gregoire likely will go along with a plan to cancel the 2008 presidential primary. Gregoire's communications director, Holly Armstrong, told me this afternoon that the governor will not support spending more than $9 million on the primary if the parties refuse to use it for delegate selection.

Republicans have said they will likely use the primary for choosing at least a portion of their delegates, so the only real question has been what Democrats would do. Armstrong said Gregoire would not take a position on whether or not her party should use the primary for delegates.

But Pelz is firm that state Democrats won't support a primary. He told me that news reports today that as many as 26 states may hold primaries on Feb. 5 show that he and state party leaders are right to avoid a spring primary.

"That means only the candidates with huge amounts of money will be competitive. Rather than being a great exercise in democracy it's about who can buy the most television ads."

Pelz said that even though some party members are pushing for a primary, there will be no substantive dissent when the central committee decides next month to stick with the caucus for selecting delegates. At a party Rules Committee meeting two weeks ago, he said, support for a primary was defeated on a vote of 31-5.

The House Appropriations Committee heard a bill this afternoon that would cancel the 2008 primary. The 2004 primary was canceled as a cost-savings measure after Democrats said they would not count the results toward delegate selection.

Pelz called the move of states to set early primary dates "a race to the bottom" that will hurt his party's chances of choosing the best candidate. With compacted primaries in the early days, he said, the nominee "will not have been battle-tested and when they get into a general election with a Republican they stumble badly."

Secretary of State Sam Reed supports the primary and opposes the bill to cancel it next year. Pelz accused Reed of playing party favorites.

"Sam Reed is a Republican, you know, and it's probably in the interest of his party to see the Democratic candidate picked in this ... television orgy on Feb. 5."

Reed just came back from the Appropriations Committee hearing. He said among people who testified, he counted more Democrats than Republicans opposed to the bill. He said there is no advantage to the Republican Party to a front-loaded primary season.

"Absolutely not. I think this is going to be very robust primary season. ... It's the first time since 1952 that we haven't had either an incumbent president or incumbent vice president who is running. That really makes it wide open for both parties."

Reed also disputes Pelz's view that crowded primaries would mean campaigns run only on TV. In 2000, Reed said, even though Democrats didn't count the primary votes, Al Gore and Bill Bradley both made repeated visits to the state.

State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser sent a letter today to the Appropriations Committee saying the Legislature should not rush to kill the primary. He wrote:

As I have indicated in conversations with individual legislators and the Secretary of State, I would strongly encourage the committee to avoid a hurried decision to cancel the presidential primary. The Washington State Republican Party has always allocated at least some of its delegates to the Republican National Convention based on the results of the presidential primary (in those years when the presidential primary has been held). The same option has been available to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, though they have always chosen to not allocate any of their delegates to the Democratic National Convention based on the results of the presidential primary. I cannot yet tell you definitively how our WSRP delegates will be allocated this year, because a final decision has not yet been reached. But whatever delegate allocation process the two major parties use, the same option would be available to the governor and legislature later this year that was utilized four years ago — a brief special session during committee assembly days. This is a far better option than rushing to cancel a presidential primary that came into being as the result of a citizen initiative.