CHEYENNE - Even as they moved up their county conventions to raise the state's presidential profile, Wyoming's Republicans said they wanted a solution to the leapfrogging of state primaries.

"Ultimately the goal here is to look beyond 2008 and fix the system, because the system is broken," said Tom Sansonetti, the state GOP's 2008 county convention coordinator. "All this jumping around is because the states feel disenfranchised by letting Iowa and New Hampshire call the shots."

Wyoming Republican officials have moved the party's delegate-selection conventions to Jan. 5 - before even Iowa or New Hampshire vote. But that scenario is likely to change.

South Carolina Republicans moved their primary to Jan. 19, forcing Iowa and New Hampshire to reconsider their dates to maintain their early status. Iowa caucuses had been scheduled for Jan. 14, and New Hampshire's primary was tentatively set for Jan. 22. Nevada is scheduled to vote on Jan. 19.

"Wyoming now becomes the first state to pick Republican presidential delegates in 2008," state GOP Chairman Fred Parady said in a news release. "Our national party rules do not provide a mechanism for all 50 state parties to participate equally in nominating delegates to the national convention. For a small state like Wyoming to have a say in the presidential nominating process, we must go before the Super Duper Tuesday primaries" on Feb. 5.

The Wyoming GOP is even willing to risk losing up to half of its delegates to the national convention to have the earlier county conventions. The Republican National Committee insists it will penalize states that schedule nominating contests before Feb. 5 by withholding delegates next summer.

"The rules are very clear. Any state that holds its primary outside the window will be penalized delegates," said Republican National Committee spokesman Paul Lindsay.

He said Wednesday that states must report by Sept. 4 the dates of their presidential primaries or caucuses. By the end of 2007, the RNC will put out "the call to the convention" which will detail how many delegates each state is awarded based on a formula in the rules.

Those rules were established in 2004 at the Republican convention in New York and are "very clear," Lindsay said. They specify that states that hold their primaries or caucuses outside the Feb. 5-July 28 "window" will be penalized with a loss of delegates. But the number won't be known until the end of the year.

Meanwhile, state GOP officials hope the Jan. 5 date will bring more attention to the state from presidential hopefuls. Mitt Romney's visit to Jackson last week is the only Wyoming stop by a Republican contender so far.

Perry Marple, chairman of the state GOP's presidential forum committee, said the state party is "obtaining commitments from the Republican presidential contenders" to attend two forums in Wyoming on Sept. 29.

"Details are still being finalized, but the forums will likely be held at Casper College in the morning and in Riverton at Central Wyoming College in the late afternoon," Marple said. "This type of voter interaction with the Republican presidential candidates is a first for Wyoming."

Nationally, the nominating calendar chaos has been just as great among the Democrats. The Democratic National Committee's rules committee voted on Aug. 25 to take away Florida's 210 delegates to the party's nominating convention in Denver next summer.

Florida Democrats were given 30 days to submit an alternative to its planned Jan. 29 primary.

The stern action was supposed to be a warning to other states not to leapfrog ahead.