The RNC Race and You

[Lunar]

An RNC rules maven contacted me with the following perspective on the RNC chair race that might explain some of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

It has to do with, natch, the presidential primary calendar.

Republican rules for the first time give the members of the Republican National Committee, by a 2/3 vote, the option of adopting a mandatory 2012 state primary election calendar.

States whose legislatures, which may be controlled by Democrats, refuse to schedule a primary that complies with RNC rules face a draconian choice.

Either their party gives up its presidential primary and instead holds (and pays for) a presidential preference caucus -- or the state suffers a loss of 1/2 of its delegates to the 2012 Convention.

Many party leaders, who, for ideological or personal reasons, prefer a low-participation caucus rather than a higher-participation primary, see this Rule as a great opportunity to transform the party. (It would become more conservative.)

And many party leaders in small states have long resented what they perceive as the excessive influence of the larger number of Republican voters in bigger states and would like to force bigger states toward the end of the primary calendar where their voters might have less influence

So -- the key factor in the RNC race is that the Rule must be presented to the RNC by a drafting committee largely appointed by the RNC Chairman and cannot be amended by the RNC membership.

Thus the new RNC Chairman could wield enormous power over the shape of the 2012 Presidential race and the composition of the 2012 convention which could adopt additional rules that would have even more impact on the future of the party.

My correspondent notes:

"Few have publicly discussed this element of the RNC race but some Chairman candidates are believed to have promised spots on the drafting committee in exchange for votes. And there is some discussion about which candidates are stalking horses for a particular presidential candidate. One question RNC candidates have not been asked, is, to whom have they promised drafting committee spots? Have any candidates promised more appointments to the committee than the number of available spots? And under what conditions would each candidate favor forcing a state to abandon its primary for a caucus, or cut its delegation in half?"

Either of these options could disenfranchise millions Republicans.

Think of this way: many voters, ranging from  military personnel fighting overseas to mothers who must stay home to care for children, would likely be disenfranchised by a forced shift from primaries to caucuses, and millions more would be disenfranchised if state convention delegations were cut in half.

My correspondent concludes: "A more basic question might be: Why should the leaders of party which claims to favor federalism and local control want to exercise a power that gives 168 people (actually a 2/3 majority of 112) the right to disenfranchise millions of Republican voters around the country?"

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/the_rnc_chair_race_the_missing.php

[Mr. Morden]

Yeah, I noted this angle last month:

Meanwhile, Jim Geraghty of National Review points out that the incoming RNC chairman will have the power to appoint the majority of the members of a commission that will present a list of possible reforms to the GOP primary process.  Any proposals presented by the commission will have to be approved by the full RNC in 2010:

link

It should be noted that, among the RNC chair candidates, Saul Anuzis is accused by some of being a stalking horse for Romney 2012, and Chip Saltsman (former campaign manager for Huckabee) is accused by some of being a stalking horse for Huckabee 2012.  So if either of them becomes RNC chair, their appointments to this committee will be scrutinized in the light of how it helps their alleged preferred candidates get a favorable primary calendar.

[The Mikado]

Or the states could, you know, follow the calendar the RNC sets up.

I don't have all that much sympathy for the states on this one.  The parties should control this process.

[Nixon in '80]

It would seem that if this happens, the party is lost... have any candidates for Chair come out expressly against this?

[Franzl]

Or the states could, you know, follow the calendar the RNC sets up.

I don't have all that much sympathy for the states on this one.  The parties should control this process.

I agree with you in theory, but Republicans don't always control the state legislature...and it would definitely put Republicans at a disadvantage if state DEMs could knowingly and willingly violate RNC rules just to get them in trouble.

[Mr. Morden]

Or the states could, you know, follow the calendar the RNC sets up.

I don't have all that much sympathy for the states on this one.  The parties should control this process.

I agree with you in theory, but Republicans don't always control the state legislature...and it would definitely put Republicans at a disadvantage if state DEMs could knowingly and willingly violate RNC rules just to get them in trouble.

I don't think it's going to matter anyway.  As long as the penalty is only losing half the state's delegates, the states will scoff, and schedule their primaries for whenever they feel like it.

Remember that in 2008, the RNC said that *no* state could hold a primary before Feb. 5th, no exceptions.  But the penalty was only losing half the state's delegates.  States such as NH, MI, SC, and FL all went before Feb. 5 and lost half their delegates, but were still major players in the nomination.  In fact, McCain won the nomination on the back of his victories in NH, SC, and FL (all penalized for going before Feb. 5).  States will gladly give up half their delegates in order to go early, so they can be more influential because of their role in shaping momentum.

[Erc]

Or the states could, you know, follow the calendar the RNC sets up.

I don't have all that much sympathy for the states on this one.  The parties should control this process.

And if the Democrats decide or recommend a different schedule that has different objectives than the Republicans...

I don't think it's going to matter anyway.  As long as the penalty is only losing half the state's delegates, the states will scoff, and schedule their primaries for whenever they feel like it.

Remember that in 2008, the RNC said that *no* state could hold a primary before Feb. 5th, no exceptions.  But the penalty was only losing half the state's delegates.  States such as NH, MI, SC, and FL all went before Feb. 5 and lost half their delegates, but were still major players in the nomination.  In fact, McCain won the nomination on the back of his victories in NH, SC, and FL (all penalized for going before Feb. 5).  States will gladly give up half their delegates in order to go early, so they can be more influential because of their role in shaping momentum.

Precisely.  And if there's no additional penalty for going several months before schedule than going one day before schedule, that adds an additional complication.

Imagine the state party's choices:

1) Pay for a caucus on the mandated date, and receive a full delegation.
2) Pay nothing for a primary on the state primary date, and receive a half delegation.
3) Pay for a caucus sometime in January, receive a half delegation.

I can't imagine many states who are scheduled after Super Tuesday picking Option 1.

Furthermore, weren't most of those states that were penalized by the Republicans this past cycle actually given a full delegation at the convention?  Which makes the penalties less believable...

[Mr. Morden]

Furthermore, weren't most of those states that were penalized by the Republicans this past cycle actually given a full delegation at the convention?  Which makes the penalties less believable...

Well, the question is whether the penalties will be enforced in the cases where they would actually tip the outcome.  In the 2008 GOP nomination contest, McCain won nationally by a sufficiently large margin that the delegate penalties wouldn't have changed the overall winner one way or another.  If, on the other hand, it had been a tight race between him and Romney, with each of them hovering around 50% of the delegates at the end of the primary season, then would the delegate penalties have been enforced or not?  That's the question.

In short, if you have a long, grinding primary contest in which there's no momentum at work, and it's all about slowly racking up delegates, then these delegate penalties would matter.  But most modern primary campaigns are such that one of the candidates reaches a critical mass of momentum in the first few weeks, and the delegate counting then becomes a formality.  So the only effective penalties are the ones that prevent the candidates from even bothering to campaign in your state at all.  Taking away half the delegates isn't going to do that.  Probably the only effective penalty is taking away 100% of the delegates (as the Dems did with FL and MI).

[cinyc]

Furthermore, weren't most of those states that were penalized by the Republicans this past cycle actually given a full delegation at the convention?  Which makes the penalties less believable...

Well, the question is whether the penalties will be enforced in the cases where they would actually tip the outcome.  In the 2008 GOP nomination contest, McCain won nationally by a sufficiently large margin that the delegate penalties wouldn't have changed the overall winner one way or another.  If, on the other hand, it had been a tight race between him and Romney, with each of them hovering around 50% of the delegates at the end of the primary season, then would the delegate penalties have been enforced or not?  That's the question.

In short, if you have a long, grinding primary contest in which there's no momentum at work, and it's all about slowly racking up delegates, then these delegate penalties would matter.  But most modern primary campaigns are such that one of the candidates reaches a critical mass of momentum in the first few weeks, and the delegate counting then becomes a formality.  So the only effective penalties are the ones that prevent the candidates from even bothering to campaign in your state at all.  Taking away half the delegates isn't going to do that.  Probably the only effective penalty is taking away 100% of the delegates (as the Dems did with FL and MI).

The Democrats, with their mandatory proportional delegate allocation rules, are much more likely to end up with a close race dragging until June than the Republicans, which currently allow the states to decide how to allocate their delegates.  That the Republican rules allow many states to allocate all delegates to the statewide winner allows delegate count momentum to build much more quickly.  It's the main reason why the Republican contest was pretty much over after Super Tuesday while the Democrats beat each other up until May.

[muon2]

I think that the rules pose a huge problem in states like IL. The presidential primary is the same date as the primary for all other partisan offices to be elected in Nov. I see no chance that the public, let alone the Dems, would want to establish a special date for the GOP primary if everything else stays on the existing date.

That being said, I think the state would benefit by separating the presidential primaries from the primaries for all other races. The nine month gap we have from the primary to the general election is not helpful to the public. A shorter season for the non-presidential races would provide more interest and keep the issues in the primary more closely related to the issues in the general.

[Mr. Morden]

The Democrats, with their mandatory proportional delegate allocation rules, are much more likely to end up with a close race dragging until June than the Republicans, which currently allow the states to decide how to allocate their delegates.  That the Republican rules allow many states to allocate all delegates to the statewide winner allows delegate count momentum to build much more quickly.  It's the main reason why the Republican contest was pretty much over after Super Tuesday while the Democrats beat each other up until May.

Actually, I mostly disagree with this, for reasons that I posted on elsewhere earlier today:

A couple of things here.  First of all, using a PR system only lengthens the race if you have more than two major candidates.  If you have a scenario like the Dems in 2008, where Clinton and Obama are the only candidates to make a serious showing in the bulk of the states, then there's no reason why the race would be shorter with WTA as opposed to PR.  WTA means that the frontrunner can build up a bigger delegate lead, but it's also that much easier for the candidate who's trailing to catch up.  (All you need is a string of a few victories, which could be as narrow as 51%/49%, and *bang*, you're back in the game.)

Of course, if you have more than two major candidates, then PR would lengthen the race, as it becomes much harder to win a delegate majority.  (But it's actually quite rare for there to be more than two serious candidates for either party's nomination after the first couple of weeks of the primary season starting anyway.)

Second, McCain's major advantage in the GOP primary system was not that every state used WTA, as not every state did use WTA.  McCain's advantage was that there's a patchwork of different systems in different states, and the states where McCain did well (like those in the Northeast) tended to be WTA (or had similar rules which benefited the statewide winner), whereas states in the South and other regions were more likely to use some variant of PR.  One of the key hidden moments in the GOP primary race was when Giuliani's cronies in NY, NJ, and CT changed the delegate allocation rules to WTA in all three states.  They did that to benefit Giuliani, but it ended up helping McCain.

[Erc]

One thing I've always thought about looking into would be each side's primaries in 2008 under the other party's system...though it may be harder for the Republicans as there's a lack of good CD data.

[minionofmidas]

Or the states could, you know, follow the calendar the RNC sets up.

I don't have all that much sympathy for the states on this one.  The parties should control this process.

And if the Democrats decide or recommend a different schedule that has different objectives than the Republicans...

After all, the Democratic primary schedule for 2012 is extremely likely to be as relevant  as the color of Kim Jong Il's sunglasses, so *theoretically* they could wreak a little havoc. (Of course, it's not as if the primary calendar were as important as some people make it out to be.)

I think that the rules pose a huge problem in states like IL. The presidential primary is the same date as the primary for all other partisan offices to be elected in Nov. I see no chance that the public, let alone the Dems, would want to establish a special date for the GOP primary if everything else stays on the existing date.

That being said, I think the state would benefit by separating the presidential primaries from the primaries for all other races. The nine month gap we have from the primary to the general election is not helpful to the public.

Illinois, Texas, Maryland... can't think of any other state that still has them the same date off the top of my head. Having the primary this early also creates problems with retiring candidates etc, of course.

Meh. I don't care how US parties select their delegates or their delegates' instructions. I find it difficult to even pretend to care.