Springfield Democrats overlooked Murphy's Law – whatever can go wrong will go wrong – when they decided to stick with the Feb. 2 primary date.

Suspecting that they outsmarted themselves by setting a Feb. 2 primary date, Democratic legislators in Springfield are moving quickly to change it. The only problem is that their idea of a fix addresses the needs of incumbent politicians, not the people of Illinois.

The state Senate last week unanimously approved legislation that would move the next primary election date from Feb. 2, 2012, to the third Tuesday in March of 2012. A House committee also approved similar legislation, sending it the full House for a vote. It seems only a matter of time before the legislation is winging its way to Gov. Pat Quinn so he can sign it into law.

Any improvement, of course, is better than no improvement. The Feb. 2 primary date was an abomination that was established for the sole purpose of boosting then-Sen. Barack Obama's presidential election prospects during the 2008 primary season. It obviously served its purpose. But after the 2008 election was over, majority Democrats rejected the idea of moving the Feb. 2 date back because they thought it served their narrow political purposes.

Here's what they saw: the early primary date gives an advantage to incumbents because it moves back the filing deadline, giving challengers has less time to decide whether to make a run. The early date also further compresses the primary campaign season, giving better known incumbents the advantage.

Perceiving that the Feb. 2 election date would keep turnout down while the party loyalists came out, the system appeared to be rigged just the way House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton like it.

So what happened? Scott Lee Cohen, the millionaire Chicago pawnbroker with a checkered past, spent $2 million of his own money in the race for lieutenant governor against a group of political unknowns and won. Madigan successfully muscled Cohen off the ballot. But Democrats correctly figured that the Feb. 2 primary date contributed to his victory. So, suddenly, it's time for a change.

The public, of course, would be better served by a later primary date – sometime in May or June – when the weather is warmer and more people would turn out. A later primary date would also shorten the general election campaign, contributing to a reduction in campaign spending.

But it's not in the politicians' interest to address the public's interest. They shot themselves in the foot with the Feb. 2 date, so they going back to late March and probably no further.