Michigan moves primary - will pledge hold?

It's hard to understand what the motivation for Michigan moving it's primary up, when this is being reported in the Washington Post:

But the ramifications are likely to be huge: Michigan is now officially a week before the New Hampshire primary -- a fact that the Granite state officials cannot, by law, abide. Their primary will soon be moved.

That will force Iowa to move, though just how early the caucuses will be is uncertain. The betting right now is that Gov. Chet Culver will hold the caucuses sometime in the first week of January.

The leading Democratic candidates have all pledged to ignore Michigan, Florida and the other states who have scheduled votes before Feb. 5, in violation of the party's rules. They did so under threat from the party of losing any delegates they would win in a violating state.

Then if you head over to the Detroit Free Press, it appears Gov. Jennifer Granholm is almost making a threat:

In a statement released by her office, Granholm said she expects the names of every credible candidate to appear on the Jan. 15 ballot and suggested it would be a mistake for campaigns to ignore the state.

As an Ohioan, I think the rush to be one of the first is nothing more than a power play and I see the potential for more and more states to play this game. The larger issue is the primary process and how candidates drop out before we have all had a chance to express our opinion.