Was the Virginia-GOP's decision to switch to a convention the smartest ever for a state party?

[Vosem]

No, Republican conventions (including in Virginia) quite routinely return very unelectable candidates (the modern example coming to mind immediately is E.W. Jackson for Lieutenant Governor in 2013), and the general history of the convention system in the United States suggests that it's very capable of providing candidates much more extreme than the ones the primary system provides. Since McGovern-Fraser, we've had 13 presidential elections, 11 of which were decided by single-digits in the decisive state (and the two that weren't -- 1972 and 1984 -- saw contested conventions!). Before that, landslides were the norm; presumably they happened because one candidate or the other was unacceptable.

Under Youngkin, the firehouse primary has been widely adopted by the VAGOP, but I think it's provided better candidates than regular primaries mostly just because it uses ranked-choice. I don't think lower turnout necessarily provides better outcomes than higher turnout (consider nominations in notoriously suppressed-primary-turnout New York), and conventions often reward good rhetoricians, which was a relevant skill in 19th-century campaigning but just isn't something that helps you in the 21st.

(I think Youngkin has also gotten lucky in that the most prominent 'populist' VAGOP figure of the post-2018 period, Amanda Chase, has been singularly unsuccessful in connecting with the base; I think a habit of leaving the party and reentering it is not actually looked upon kindly by voters who think of themselves as loyalists. Youngkin is also advantaged by having been a nobody during the 2020 cycle.)

[Vosem]

the modern example coming to mind immediately is E.W. Jackson for Lieutenant Governor in 2013

now that's a name I haven't heard in a while.

Also TIL that this guy is running for President, LOL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Jackson#2024_presidential_candidacy

I once met him IRL, actually; we have a mutual friend. He's a very compelling speaker and very entertaining to listen to, but, like, it does not strike me as strange at all that he totally failed to become a politician. He wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as he did if not for the convention system rewarding being a compelling speaker so much.