Republican Party of Florida Chairman Lenny Curry is defending his state’s primary selection process, which has resulted in a Jan. 31, 2012 date that has thwarted the will of the national political parties.

“[U]nder the authority provided them by Florida statute and their selection by Governor Scott, Speaker Cannon and Senate President Haridopolos, the nine members of the Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee chose January 31st as our state’s date. As I have said before, the Republican Party of Florida was always prepared to work with the date selected by those with the legal authority to do so,” Curry said.

Curry hinted that the outcome could have been much worse, noting that the state committee considered dates ranging from Jan. 3 to March 6, 2012.

“So, this compromise of January 31st properly reflects the importance Florida will play on the national stage,” he added. “We look forward to having a great primary, and then hosting a world-class convention for our party’s nominee. Florida will be the most important state in our efforts to defeat Barack Obama.”

Nevada GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian — like her counterparts here in Iowa and in South Carolina — holds a much different perspective on the move by Florida.

“Florida’s decision to move its primary is disappointing and, frankly, disrespectful of the other early primary states and the process as a whole,” she said. “Because the state of Nevada’s caucus is, by rule, four days after New Hampshire’s [primary], we will move Nevada’s first-in-the-west caucus if the New Hampshire GOP moves theirs. No matter what, we will not allow this disruption to interfere with our goal of creating a presidential caucus that will be the pride of the western states. This situation gives Nevadans the opportunity to showcase our ability to adapt to establish our state as a major player in national politics.”

Although party rules stipulate that a state in violation of the national nominating calendar can be stripped of delegates to their national convention, such a threat has not slowed down groups hoping to organize around the Jan. 31 Florida date.

The Republican Party of Florida and CNN announced they will host a debate in Jacksonville in the lead-up to the new Florida primary date. In addition, NBC News and several other organizations voiced their intention to hold a debate in Tampa, the site of the 2012 Republican National Convention, on Jan. 30, 2012.

From the NBC News press release:

NBC News, National Journal, The St. Petersburg Times, and the Florida Council of 100 today announced that their Republican presidential primary debate will take place on Monday, January 30, 2012. The event will fall on the eve of the Florida primary, which state officials today declared will be January 31.

The jointly sponsored debate, first announced in April, will be held at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, site of the 2012 Republican National Convention. It is the first time that presidential primary candidates will debate in the arena where one of them will return to accept the nomination.

This historic event will be broadcast in Tampa by WFLA and statewide on other NBC stations as well as air nationally on MSNBC and stream on msnbc.com.

From the Republican Party of Florida press release, which was also circulated on Friday:

Today the Republican Party of Florida and CNN have entered into an agreement to co-host a nationally-televised debate on a date between January 22 and January 31. The move ensures Florida voters, and the nation, will hear directly from the Republican presidential contenders just before Florida’s January 31st primary. The debate will be held in a venue in Jacksonville.

“The Republican Party of Florida is excited to be working with CNN for a debate linked to the state’s primary date,” said RPOF Chairman Lenny Curry. “The opportunity to host it in my home city, Jacksonville, helps shine the national spotlight on another region of Florida that our eventual nominee must win.”

Florida Governor Rick Scott said of the announcement, “After national debates in Tampa and Orlando, this latest partnership with CNN for a debate in Jacksonville in January demonstrates the crucial role Florida will play, not only in the Republican Presidential Primary, but in the general election next November.”

“The great irony at work — especially with the Reagan Library debate — is going to be the fact that two frontrunners weren’t even Republicans during the Reagan administration, whereas people like myself at the age of 21 were,” McCotter said during an appearance on Fox Business.

The Simi Valley, Calif. debate is slated for Sept. 7 and is being co-sponsored by NBC News and The Politico, which have established rules that only candidates who have received “at least four percent support as the preferred nominee among Republicans in a methodologically sound and recognized national poll conducted by one of the following survey organization since the November 2010 elections: Gallop, Bloomberg, NBC/WSJ, ABC/Washington Post, CBS/The New York Times, CNN, Fox and Associated Press.”

Inclusion is open, organizers say, to “all Republicans who have a reasonable prospect of becoming the GOP nominee and who have demonstrated that they are in a credible position to be a principal competitor in the early stages of the nominating contest.”

Using such a standard, it’s clear that U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Atlanta businessman Herman Cain make the cut, and they are all expected to participate.

Also expected to be on the stage, however, are former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum — candidates who, according to the latest Gallup poll, do not break 4 percent. But because the organizers did not stipulate that the polling must be recent, nor that the poll had to include the existing field or be exclusive to candidates who have actually committed to be in the race.

That means some candidates can pull polls from months ago — prior to Perry’s announcement — or polls that spread the already congested field by including non-committed candidates like Donald Trump, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin or former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Those who don’t make the cut include McCotter, former Louisiana Gov. Buddy Roemer, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and political strategist Fred Karger.

“It’s especially disheartening when you know that people who are on that stage are either tied with me in the polls, as a ‘tertiary candidate,’‟ and have been running and spending millions of dollars, or are within very close proximity to us in the polls,” McCotter said.

“As a Detroiter, you put your nose to the grindstone; you work hard, and try to make things happen.”

On Thursday the Johnson campaign also questioned the rules being used to invite some and exclude others from the debate process.

Clips of McCotter’s appearance on Fox Business are embedded below:

Obama’s web team whipped up a frenzy this week with an edgy YouTube video imagining a victory by Sen. John McCain. They used archival footage of Tom Brokaw announcing the news, and the video climbed to the top of YouTube — besting celebrities, SNL clips and the Sarah Palin montages that dominate political hits at the web site. But this afternoon, NBC stripped the video off the web by filing a copyright claim with YouTube.

It’s a setback for Obama’s field program, which has used viral organizing to register and mobilize new voters.  The video promoted a dedicated voter portal, VoteforChange.com, that helps people register to vote.

It’s also bad time because there are only five days until the registration deadlines in the key states of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia.