Goffstown – The date for the New Hampshire primary will remain up in the air until the Michigan presidential nominating contest finally has been scheduled, Secretary of State Bill Gardner said yesterday.

"The primary will be on a date that preserves our tradition," Gardner said. "It will be a humdinger."

On Friday, a Michigan appeals court upheld a lower court ruling against a law that set the date in that state as Jan. 15. The decision could be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, or the Legislature, which is still in session, might pass another primary law, Gardner told reporters at St. Anselm College.

"I'm waiting for some resolution and I don't know when that will be," he said.

He said, repeating past statements, that the New Hampshire primary would be no later than Jan. 8, if Michigan sticks with the Jan. 15 date. Gardner said Michigan state officials had told him their date could be as late as Feb. 26, while there are also advocates of a date earlier than the original one.

Gardner said he is willing to wait Michigan out and is prepared to organize the New Hampshire primary faster than he ever has. The shortest window of time between an announcement and the date of a presidential primary has been six to seven weeks, Gardner said, but he once was able to hold a state primary within a month.

"If we were faced with a situation that requires that we do it faster than we ever expected, I think we would have a chance to make that happen," Gardner said.

Other than Jan. 8, he would not speculate on possible dates for the New Hampshire event. His preference is a Tuesday, he said, unless there is an extraordinary circumstance that would prevent it, such as the fact that both Christmas and New Year's are on Tuesdays.

He said this primary would be different than others because there is no presidential or vice presidential incumbent seeking the office. He described it as a once-in-a-generation event.

"This is going to be a great primary, maybe the greatest before it is said and done," Gardner said.

Gardner was joined by state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro and Jennifer Donahue, a senior advisor at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics where the event, known as the Granite State Public Policy Forum, took place.

Gardner spoke at length about the history of the New Hampshire primary, tracing the beginnings of the Granite State political culture to the colonial era and the nineteenth century.

Gardner met with 12 other secretaries of state in Washington on Friday to discuss ways to bring order to the chaotic primary scheduling process.

He said a proposal they're working on would maintain Iowa's caucuses and New Hampshire's primary in the first spots on the calendar, but also give larger states a prominent role in selecting party nominees.

The Associated Press also contributed to this report.