Posted on 01/31/2008 8:23:00 AM PST by Jack Black
Out of frustration with the current primary system several observers and magazines have suggested a single nationwide primary. This would cause as many problems as it fixes, including making money a huge determining factor and (therefore) giving even more power to the MSM to pick our candidates.
Several of these commentators have compounded the bad idea of a All-State Primary with the worse suggestion that the Congress mandate it.
The proposed plan is not great for several reasons. First off is Constitutionality. The Republican party is not a branch of the US Government which the Congress can legislate rules for!
The Republican Primary is a private organization whose members have the right to set their own rules. If we are unhappy with the process let us force the Republican Party to change them.
Here are some changes I would support:
1. No caucuses. All Presidential delegates shall be determined by a full vote of the people of the state.
2. No winner take all. All states should have the same rules for the primaries. Some "bonus" for the winner is OK.
This year several big states going "winner take all" has skewed the influence of the East out of all proportion to the value they represent to our eventual nominee. New York should not weigh so heavily in picking the GOP nominee, and WTA is making that worse.
3. More delegates for Red States. That is States should get "credit" for going for the GOP Presidential nominee in one or more previous election. This, again, prevents states like New York, which has lots of voters but zero record of going Republican from selecting who will be the candidate of the GOP.
4. Group states into 5 (or so)groups, have them vote on the same day, and rotate between the groups.
The states should be broken up into diverse "baskets". Each basket would get: 1 mega state, 1 midwest state, 1 western state, 1 New England state, 1 southern State, 1 rust belt state. In this way no particular demographic, geographic or ideological group gets an advantage by dint of lottery. These groups are fairly evenly weighted.
Five Groups of 10 states each would mean one primary a month in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May.
5. No independent voting in GOP primaries. This may require the GOP to remove control of our primaries from state legislatures and pay for them oursleves. Fine. On general principles we should not let Democratic legislatures dictate our rules, anyway.
States would be free to hold whatever beauty contests, state sponsored, they choose. We can not prevent New Hampshire from having a giant straw poll in January. But the RNC would not accredite such an event with any power to name delegates. That would ONLY take place in the RNC sanctioned group primaries.
By having our own primary process, seperate from the Dems, we would begin to increase the differentiation between our open, fair and well thoght out process and the corrupt, insider laden Democrat one. This, in turn, would attract voters to our party.
Many commentators have, erroniously, blamed the RNC for the primary mess. This is exactly wrong. Our current system is not an unfair one designed by the RNC, in secret, to benefit John McCain or other favored candidates. It is, instead, a hodgepode of individual rules created by state parties and state legislatures. In many cases the state legislatures are run by corrupt Democratic machines!
No wonder it is a mess. The solution therefore does not lie in having (many Democratic) legislatures take even more control of our process, but rather insisting that the RNC get tough, lay down the law, and create a system that is fair, consistent and for Republicans.
Hear, hear!
I absolutely agree with the idea of completely closed primaries. I believe we have had enough of “crossover” voters dictating our choices for us.
If the State Parties don’t like it, tough. Don’t get seated.
Of course, the imbecile Republican Party at the national level would never do such a sensible thing...
I’m in favor of all except the multi-state primary spread out across the country. I’d rather have primaries grouped by region, like say southwest, northwest,northeast, mid-Atlantic, etc which would allow the candidates to spend their time and most importantly, money, in one area rather than hopping from side to side across the entire country. Rotate among the regions, though, so no area has that “first”/”Most important” claim
If we don’t get the national primary day, I nominate Indiana for the first basket primary in January. We vote in May so we get ignored completely, but we are counted on as a shoe-in red state. I’m tired of our state getting screwed out of the primary process.
It’s probably just me but I feel as though the liberal, MSM is completely manipulating and orchestrating the whole “primary” process this year. The “media” wants McCain and Clinton and that’s what we the people are going to get whether we like it or not. IMHO.
It’s probably just me but I feel as though the liberal, MSM is completely manipulating and orchestrating the whole “primary” process this year. The “media” wants McCain and Clinton and that’s what we the people are going to get whether we like it or not. IMHO.
Change this to All Presidential delegates shall be determined by a full vote of Regestered Republicans Only.
Multi state primaries and bunching them all early demand a huge amount of money meaning name recognition and money wins a nomination. The current system is fine except move larger states back some. Iowa, NH, MI, SC and throw in a western state is a good group of states to use to get a feel for the candidates. String states like FL, CA, TX, NY out over the next couple of months allowing candidates to spend more time in each state. Maybe group surrounding states into smaller regional primaries - for example, FL, GA AL and MS on the same day. CA, OR and WA on the same day. Continue to have as many debates as possible to allow under funded candidates a little bit of a voice. Allow the parties to select their nominees over a four to five month period of time rather than what we have now which is basically 30 days and done.
This is a necessary, and well-thought-out idea. Kudos. The MSM will sabotage us at every turn, as they have been doing for over 30 years now.
So in year X New England gets the first slot, followed by the South. You are still going to have the same problems as now. Lots of candidates who are weak in that region will be declared "losers". McCain and Rudy would likley be our main candidates in your scenario. Entire REGIONS may not be counted. Say MidWest goes last. It's over for all of them.
The basket approach would ensure even if a state is overlooked (by virtue of going last) that its issues have been picked up in an earlier primary. (That is if Ohio is last at least Indiana spoke for the rust belt in basket #2)
Thanks. That is better wording. It’s what I meant, but did not clearly articulate (until point 5).
Those who did not watch did not see McQueeg clicking his ball point pin or his stiff jaw breaking grin when confronted about his lies about Romney's "Strawberry Timetable"!
What they see in the MSM sound bites this morning is McQueeg challenging Romney on the subject. But they are not playing the beat-down Romney gave McQueeg!
I find it incomprehensible that 3.7 percent of the USA can so totally destroy the candidacy of ALL conservatives running in the Republican Party. SC, NH, IA, and NV amount to ONLY 11,000,000 people total. The fact that they destroyed the ability of 96.3 percent ot the USA to even have a say in this primary is unconscionable. It may be that Fred, Duncan, Tancredo, Brownback, and Keyes used national polls to make their decisions to quit, but I find it hard to believe that the four above states don’t represent a serial financial hurdle to be overcome before going on to the rest of the US. The overblown importance of those four states in this process must be fixed before 2012. I don’t have a clue yet how to fix this.
Lets just have the red states go before any of the blue ones.
If they never vote Republican anyway they should have little say in choosing our candidate.
Come to mention it, I did see Dan Rather and Katie Couric coming out of the voting booth at my voting precinct, each wearing a button that said "John McCain - Vote early, Vote often."
. “Iowa, NH, MI, SC and throw in a western state is a good group of states to use to get a feel for the candidates.”
Thats exactly what we had with Wyoming (who) in the middle.
After NH, half (the better) of the GOP was already eliminated by the MSM pundits and they had drafted the candidate pairings they wanted, shutting the others out of the campaign reporters in tow and the press releases.
I think the primaries should be conducted in alphebetical order in pairs. Wisconsin/ Alabama Washington/Alaska etc.
Run the primarys two per week for 11 weeks with 6 states on the last week. four states per week in groups of two elections allows the candidates travel time for campaigning between elections. Put a spending cap on what each candidate can spend for each state election, or a total cap based on whatever spending strategy each candidate prefers.
Spending caps put all of the candidates on equal terms with the big budget campaigns. Let the campaigns save the majority of the campaign budget on whoever gets the nomination and return any excesses to the party for the final campaign. We have to get the big money out of the primary cycle. No thanks to John McCain and his CFR his plan has totally backfired on campaign finance. That should be a final warning that McCain is not a viable leader as President.
What really turned me off about this election cycle was two things. Starting a year earlier than tradition. And allowing 5% of the states and voters to statistically eliminate certain candidates (with help of the MSM).
I don’t know if we could have ended up with any different front running candidates using my idea. But we will never know what could have been and we are pretty much out of choices as of now.
Also: Rotate all the states (even the big ones) through an early schedule so that everyone gets access at some point to the front line.
OR
Let each state bid when they want their primary to take place. The earlier the primary, the fewer the delegates they control according to some logarithmic or steep curve formula.
Agreed....we should also choose each area’s position randomly.
That's an interesting idea. State would have to EARN the right to go early. Guess who would have had the lead-off primary in 2008 under your scenario?
UTAH.
I can hear the screams of the FredHeads all the way to the depths of my command bunker from that one...
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