On Sept. 30, 2011, Florida's Presidential Preference Primary Date Selection Committee voted to set the date of the state's presidential preference primary on January 31, 2012 in violation of RNC and DNC rules.  The move by this small group of Florida Republicans prompted the sanctioned early states of South Carolina, Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire to move the dates of their contests forward, leading to a January crush that party leaders had sought to avoid. 

However, aside penalizing Florida Republicans half their delegates, stripping them of guest passes at the convention and putting the Florida delegation in an inconvenient hotel during the convention, the RNC seemed powerless to stop the calendar shuffling.  In October some candidates started talk of boycotting Nevada, which was impinging on New Hampshire, but no one seemed willing to take on Florida. 

On Oct. 19, 2011, longshot Republican candidate Fred Karger set a challenge.  In a letter he wrote, "If Florida does not agree to move its primary back to its original date in March 2012 by November 1, 2011, we will officially launch a nationwide Boycott of Florida Orange Juice."


The proposal really came too late; it might have had some impact if it had come a couple of weeks earlier, soon after the Florida committee's announcement on Sept. 30. 

There are interesting historical resonances in this proposal.  Karger is a openly gay candidate.  In 1977 Anita Bryant, singer, beauty queen and spokeswoman for the Florida Citrus Commission led a campaign to repeal an anti-discrimination ordinance in Dade County, and the gay community responded with a boycott of orange juice.  [see Wikipedia; Anita Bryant]