Florida to blame for nasty GOP race, some RNC members say Instead, the first Republican vote took place Jan. 3, when New Year's champagne bottles were barely in the trash. The GOP race was supposed to be spirited and exciting. Not one that turned bitterly nasty even as only a handful of delegates have been awarded, allowing plenty of time for a bloody internecine struggle between Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. How did it turn out this way? Blame Florida, say Republican National Committee members who helped design the rules governing the process year. The Sunshine State decided to ignore a carefully constructed RNC calendar and hold its primary Jan. 31, earlier than the party had intended. "Greedy, greedy, greedy," sighed John Ryder, an RNC member from Tennessee who helped craft the rules governing this year's primary process. "Astute, relevant, decisive," shot back Rep. Dean Cannon, the Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, who helped decide it was worth incurring party sanctions to ensure Florida played a major and early role in the process. For 18 months following the 2008 election, a special RNC committee carefully studied the nominating process to try to come up with a new calendar that would produce the strongest nominee to challenge President Obama in November. The committee's goal was to push the whole process out of the Christmas season and to avoid a front-loaded national primary, where all the big states held primaries early and chose the best organized, most well-funded candidate before voters in most of the country even got a chance to participate in the process. After watching Democrats get energized through a long and closely watched primary battle in 2008 between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, they decided a longer process would help vet candidates and get activists enthusiastic about the campaign. And so they decided the nominating process wouldn't kick off until February and wouldn't begin in earnest until March and April. Under rules adopted in 2010, no state was supposed to hold a vote in January. Only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada - states that deeply treasure their traditional first-in-the-nation status - were supposed to vote in February. States could then choose to hold contests in March, but only if they agreed to undercut their own ability to swing the race by awarding their delegates proportionally to candidates, as opposed to awarding all delegates to the winner of their state's race. Most states, it was thought, would choose to hold primaries and caucuses in April or even later. "The goal was to give candidates a chance to keep playing, states the opportunity to be be relevant and the lesser-funded and less well-known candidate a chance to emerge," Ryder said. But then Florida happened. In September, state leaders decided to break RNC rules and conduct the state's primary on Jan. 31.