“If the job of scheduling the presidential nominating contests were assigned to an insane asylum, this is pretty much what the patients would come up with.”

That’s the opinion of Larry Sabato, the nationally known political scientist from the University of Virginia. In a new analysis, Sabato says voters in as many as 25 states may go the polls and select nominees for President by the first week of February 2008… with a whopping 17 of those states now considering holding a presidential primary on February 5 of next year.

And yes, that’s the day California now appears poised to hold its primary election… a change from June, in order to be relevant in selecting the next occupant of the White House.

Sabato offers some interesting context in his new look at the ‘08 primaries. “In 1980,” he writes, “only one state had a primary or caucus by the end of February. By 2000 nine states did so, and in 2004, nineteen. Next year, an incredible thirty states are on track to push into January or February.”

“The system is out of control, and no entity with a national perspective is in charge,” Sabato writes. “Not the Congress, not the political parties. Individual states are ruling the roost, doing what they think is in their interests.”

You can read his full analysis here.