Because there's such an extended primary season (well over a year in the current election), with the exception of voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and the perhaps quarter of the population that's deeply involved in politics, no one is paying attention.  

Iowa tends to create a huge bump for the winner in the primaries until what's called super Tuesday, when a large number of large states all vote at once.  So whoever comes out of Iowa with a win has an automatic advantage going into super Tuesday.  

This year, super Tuesday is going to be even more super, as more and more states vote on that day.

Some states, like Florida, have jumped clear past super Tuesday on Feb. 5, to right after New Hampshire.  There have been persistent rumors that Florida well attempt to  vote earlier than New Hampshire.  The DNC, Democratic National Committee, the federal party, has made clear that if Florida does so, it's delegates will be decertified.  Which means that Florida voters will have no say in who the Democratic candidates is.

If Florida jumps, the, New York, California, and Illinois are likely to jump clear past New Hampshire in response.  At that point the DNC has to either tell New Hampshire that they've lost their place in line, or decertify the results of elections in New York, California, and Illinois.

Remember that voting early generates about $250 million in economic stimulus for New Hampshire in hotel and food costs for campaigns and reporters.  This is not something to be sneezed at.

We could very easily arrive at a situation in which almost a third of the elected delegates have been decertified.  Which means that the role of the 800 superdelegates (DNC members, governors, Congress, Senate, etc) will be magnified, because a close election in which the winner of Iowa took early states only to lose later on, leaving them without a majority from delegates allocated by voters.  Sounds like gibberish.  Here's a chart detailing how 2004 DNC delegates were allocated.  

There are roughly 4,300 delegates. If you start yanking the delegates from California (~500) Florida, Illinois, New York (~250 each), that 1,250 delegates gone.  So now you have a base of 3,050 delegates.  Around 2,250 of those are elected in the primary election.  The rest are superdelegates.   The more states that decide they want to leapfrog, the more enhanced the role of superdelegates in the election.

I've got to go know, but I may post a diary on this later.  

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg