John DiStaso, the New Hampshire Union Leader's senior political writer, began writing "Granite Status" in 1982. His influential reports on behind-the-scenes politics in the first-primary state are must reading every Thursday for insiders from Concord to Washington, D.C. Watch for "Granite Status" updates on UnionLeader.com whenever New Hampshire political news breaks.

WHEN WILL the New Hampshire primary be held? Despite long-distance lobbying from Iowa leaders who do not want their first-in-the-nation caucus shoved into December 2007, Secretary of State Bill Gardner has not budged on his intent to hold the New Hampshire primary on the traditional Tuesday.

He made it clear last week that it would take an "extraordinary circumstance" for him to schedule the primary on a day other than a Tuesday. Yesterday, he was even more resolute in that opinion.

►NH voters prefer Saturday primary (6)
►NH primary won't be later than Jan. 12
►John DiStaso's Granite Status: The Iowa Squeeze

"I'm looking at Tuesday, unless there is some extraordinary circumstance," he said. "And we will all know if there is an extraordinary circumstance. That's where it's at, and that's it. There is no way I'd be able to figure out now all the different types of things that could develop to make it extraordinary. As far as I'm concerned, the primary is on a Tuesday."

What happened in Vegas?

Have the South Carolina Republicans rendered the Nevada Democrats irrelevant, or at least less relevant?

John Edwards apparently thinks so.

It's been well-documented that when South Carolina GOP Chair Katon Dawson came to New Hampshire a week ago to announce his party's primary would be bumped up from Feb. 2 to Jan. 19, he forced Gardner to schedule the first-in-the-nation primary no later than Saturday, Jan. 12.

That negates the goal of the Democratic National Committee to be sure that a state with a more racially diverse population than Iowa and New Hampshire holds a caucus between the two.

Now, unless Nevada Dems bite the DNC hand that created them and move up their caucus (and a party spokesman has said they won't move), Nevada will now be third in the nation and share the spotlight on the same day as the South Carolina Democrats.

The Edwards campaign announced yesterday he's moving some staff out of Nevada. New Hampshire campaign spokesman Kate Bedingfield says the local campaign will receive "a handful" of those field staffers, and she said, candidly, that the calendar change "did have some impact. As New Hampshire moves up, we wanted to accelerate staffing here in New Hampshire to help meet our organizing targets, so we shifted some trained field staff." Other Nevada staffers will go to Iowa and South Carolina.

Rising or falling

The Edwards campaign took a hit in the Boston Globe this week, and the critic in the story was none other than his 2004 campaign chair, Manchester state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro.

D'Allesandro told us yesterday that as far as his endorsement is concerned, "Nobody's out of the picture. But I don't think (Edwards) is as solid on the ground as some of the others. And he did some things that didn't resonate well with the public -- moving into the large home when he was at the poverty institute, then the expensive haircut and the hedge fund thing."

But former state Sen. Caroline McCarley, Edwards's state campaign director in the last campaign and now volunteer adviser, said, "With absolute certainty, the commitment in terms of the size of the campaign and the overall commitment to New Hampshire is quantum leaps ahead of what it was four years ago."

She said the campaign "made a conscious decision not to have as many captains and chairs as last time, because it's more in keeping with who John Edwards is."

The Edwards campaign realizes how well it must do both in Iowa and New Hampshire to stay in the game past mid-January. Bedingfield says the campaign had 40 field staff organizers in June. The "handful" will presumably bring the number closer to 45. In 2003 and 2004, she said, Edwards had just 10. She says the campaign has 10 field offices -- more, she says, than any other Democratic candidate except Hillary Clinton.

A huge event for Edwards will be his four-day bus tour with his wife, Elizabeth, on Aug. 23-26. The campaign continues to release names of endorsements -- 116 new ones this week, it says.

They're also excited about yesterday's Rasmussen Reports poll showing Edwards in third place at 14 percent, while Hillary Clinton outpolls Barak Obama, 37 to 22 percent. In July, a UNH poll for CNN and WMUR had Edwards in fourth place, also behind Bill Richardson.

Latino leaders

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, president of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), will meet and greet for Hillary Clinton at this weekend's Latino Fest in Manchester. Her Latino leadership team, to be announced today, will include activists Leticia Ortiz of Bedford, Carmen Beltram, Sara Varela and Nury Marquez, all of Manchester and Southern New Hampshire University faculty member Zelma Ximen.

Waiting for Jeanne

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can pump up Jeanne Shaheen, but Steve Marchand, Katrina Swett and Jay Buckey are undaunted. What will they do if Shaheen gets in? We may find out, but Marchand, who months ago said he'd get out of the campaign if Shaheen gets in, isn't acting like someone preparing to exit.

A recent DSCC e-mail to supporters nationwide talks generically about the need to win more U.S. Senate seats from the GOP next year. But it goes on to highlight Shaheen's strong showings in a recent poll. It then provides a link to former state Democratic Chair Kathy Sullivan's "Draft Shaheen" Web site.

There's no mention in the e-mail of the other three; they are, however, listed on the DSCC's New Hampshire Web page as "potential candidates."

Marchand was contacted campaigning in Berlin yesterday. He said he'd been to, or is going to, more stops in Grafton and Coos counties.

"What I'm doing today shows that I believe that I'm going to win the primary and defeat John Sununu," he said. "All you can really do is control your own campaign."

Regarding his reaction to a possible Shaheen entrance, Marchand said, "Nothing has changed at this time."

"Everyone should take a deep breath," said Swett campaign manager Bob Quinn. He called Shaheen a "well-respected Democratic leader" whose leadership as governor set the stage for "much of the success that the Democrats experienced in 2006. She certainly has earned the right to take her time."

New Swett endorsements, by the way, include Manchester candidate for mayor Tom Donovan, former state Sens. Katie Wheeler and Wayne King (and Wayne's wife, Alice), Reps. Eleanor Kjellman, Jim Webber, Claire Clark, Barbara French and Bernie Benn, former Salem Democratic Chair Mike Garofalo, former Reps. Alex Koutroubas and Tom Katsiantonis and Manchester school board member Russ Ouelette.

Bloomberg says no thanks

The non-partisan New Hampshire World Affairs Council has heard from several Democratic presidential candidates so far on their foreign policy platforms. Board member George Bruno says all major GOP candidates have been invited, but none have accepted.

Bruno says the group also recently invited New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but the potential independent candidate turned it down. Bruno says an aide to the mayor telephoned him to say that "he has no plans to address the council and no plans to be in New Hampshire."

Quick takes

-- Following his second-place finish in last weekend's Iowa Republican straw poll, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will begin a four-day campaign visit to New Hampshire tomorrow with a stop at the Manchester Republican Committee's spaghetti dinner at the Tower Cafe in the Brady Sullivan building. He's expected in eight communities from Nashua to North Conway during the following three days.

-- With the exit of their candidate, Republican Tommy Thompson, from the presidential race last weekend, Mike Biundo and Jack Heath at Meridian Communications have been contacted by several campaigns and are weighing their options.

-- Judd Gregg said the other day that he expects to make an endorsement in the GOP presidential primary in September or October. Gregg is offering no clues, but the early betting is on Mitt Romney.

-- So now that he's no longer commissioner of Health and Human Services (his last day was Tuesday), what's John Stephen up to? We found him yesterday on his cell phone "driving around lost, looking for Clark's farm (Clark's Trading Post)" with his family.

John DiStaso is senior political reporter of the New Hampshire Union Leader.