Posted on 03/16/2016 7:22:17 PM PDT by hiho hiho
As the dust settled from the fiery rules meeting at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, the leading storyline that emerged was that establishment forces had once again quashed insurgent outsiders by instituting two critical changes to the way the GOP nominates its presidential candidate.
One new rule cracks down on delegates who are inclined to peel away from the electoral outcome in their state, a direct response to the rabble-rousing supporters of former Rep. Ron Paul. The other rule allows the Republican National Committee to change a certain set of rules between conventions with a three-fourths vote of membership, disseminating power from the rules committee which previously held sole jurisdiction.
But there was a third overlooked change that could potentially have the biggest, most dramatic effect on the 2016 primary fight and some RNC members believe it could render irrelevant the concerted, well-laid efforts to shorten the nomination contest.
Officially, it’s Rule 40 in the RNC handbook and it states that any candidate for president “shall demonstrate the support of a majority of the delegates from each of eight (8) or more states” before their name is presented for nomination at the national convention.
In a scenario with a commanding front-runner, this doesn’t seem like a high threshold to cross. But with the absence of an heir apparent standard-bearer and the most wide open nomination battle in decades looming, some RNC members think Rule 40 could crack open the door to the possibility of a convention floor fight. The theory: If no one candidate has secured eight states, it invites a free-for-all without a reason to get out. Conversely, if multiple candidates garner eight victories and accrue hundreds of delegates, each could claim a right to soldier on. For instance, it isn't inconceivable to think that Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., could dominate the Northeast, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. performing well in the South and Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wisc,, racking up victories in the Midwest.
So much for an orderly primary.
This storyline would cause considerable heartburn for a good number of Republicans who are at pains to streamline and sanitize the primary process in the wake of the long and draining 2012 slog.
But not Curly Haugland, the 14-year committeeman from North Dakota. A staunch traditional conservative, Haugland knows the rule book better than many of his colleagues and is poised to use it to his advantage to empower delegates over primary voters in the next nominating process.
“Every primary, every caucus, will essentially be a beauty contest,” Haugland says of 2016. “Now, those results will be persuasive to delegates that go to the convention. But the delegates to the Republican convention are going to choose the next presidential nominee. Nobody will have the majority of delegates from eight states before the convention.”
At first listen, the notion seems laughable.
A four-month primary schedule that doesn’t matter? A multiple candidate field devising a delegate-driven strategy for a convention fight? Not in today’s top-down, tightly scripted political era.
But Haugland, wielding the 2012 rule book in his hand, merely refers back to the RNC’s own rules, created and ratified by its own membership to defend his game-changing assertions.
“The RNC has no option except to follow these rules, until they convene in 2016,” he says.
“They can’t wish it away. All the campaigns have to operate with the knowledge that this is the current rule, to get to the eight-state threshold.”
Asked how widespread his interpretation of the rule is, Haugland responds with a grin as wide as a Cheshire cat: “I don’t need any support. All I need is Rule 40.”
Curly Haugland, a North Dakota representative on the Republican National Committee, reads a newspaper on the North Dakota state Republican convention stage on March 21, 2010, n Grand Forks, N.D. Curly Haugland, shown here at the North Dakota state Republican convention in 2010, wants RNC delegates, not primary voters, to ultimately decide the Republican nominee in 2016. The irony is that the origination of the new Rule 40 came from the epitome of the establishment: Super Republican lawyer and lobbyist Ben Ginsberg, who served as Mitt Romney’s counsel in 2012 and guided the successful Florida recount on behalf of the GOP in 2000 that made George W. Bush president.
Ginsberg, seated two rows behind Haugland at that Tampa meeting, spearheaded many of the rule changes in order to protect Romney’s 2012 convention and what was assumed to be his re-election campaign in 2016. He proposed increasing the amount of states required for an aspiring nominee from five to eight. He also changed the requirement from a simple plurality -- any leading percentage of the vote under 50 percent -- to a harder-to-attain majority. It was all meant to insulate Romney from an intraparty threat. As pugilistic as he is savvy, Ginsberg got almost everything he wanted.
Reached by phone, Ginsberg declined to comment on the record for this story, but multiple committee members cited him as the driver of most of the amendments to the rules. Not all blame him for his maneuvers – his primary and rightful concern at that time was protecting Romney – but now several think Rule 40 should be revisited, even if they see Haugland’s scenario as unlikely to materialize.
Place Morton Blackwell, the grizzled veteran Virginia committeeman who has sat on the RNC Rules Committee since 1988, in that category.
History lends him to believe a clear nominee will become apparent by June after four months of aggressive campaigning, but he acknowledges that it’s possible the rule could wreak unnecessary chaos.
“It’s conceivable the application of this rule could result in nobody having a majority. It needs to be clarified. The problem is it’s not clear,” he says, adding that a slew of Ginsberg’s “unbelievable power grabs” in Tampa need to be repealed.
“That’s a very interesting question,” responds New Hampshire RNC member Steve Duprey when presented with Haugland’s reading of the rule.
Duprey predicts one of the candidates will in fact achieve the eight-state requirement by June, in part based on the assumption that most states holding contests after March 15 will move to winner-take-all delegate models rather than proportional allotment.
“Somebody will get eight,” he says. But even so, he still reveals a bit of concern of where Rule 40 could leave the party in an unprecedented race. “We’re lucky we got a rule that allows us to amend it. Whew!,” he adds.
It’s true. If the RNC sees Rule 40 as enough of a hornet’s nest, they could vote to change it again – but in another esoteric provision, they won’t be able to do so until on the eve of the next convention, slated for midsummer 2016. A change that late in the game could set off another firestorm within the party with candidates enlisting delegates to defend their interests.
Haugland is currently in the process of reaching out to the potential 2016ers to inform them of the rule and how to use it to their advantage. In 2012, he personally urged Paul, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum to stay in the primary race even when Romney was close to becoming the presumptive nominee. He maintains that a united front by those candidates would have prevented a cascading effect toward Romney, who formally secured the necessary delegates to become the presumptive nominee in late May of that year
“A group of educated candidates, having seen that experience, won’t have that happen again,” he promises.
John Ryder, the RNC’s general counsel from Tennessee, calls Haugland’s reading of the rule “a theoretical possibility … but extremely remote.”
Sure, the early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada could split their preferences. But once the larger states begin dispersing their delegates in March and April, a clear winner is more likely to emerge.
Yet even the RNC rules for those winner-take-all states are murky.
A February 2011 memo penned by the RNC counsel’s office instructed that states that wanted to distribute all of their delegates to the first place finisher could do so only if they received “no lower than 50 percent.”
Mitt Romney didn’t begin regularly capturing more than 50 percent of the primary vote until April 2012. If, as assumed, the 2016 field is larger and more competitive than 2012, getting to the 50 percent mark regularly could be a tall task for even the leader of the pack. This fine print could prompt the RNC to reassess the parameters for delegate allocation.
Ryder maintains Rule 40 is not a “realistic concern,” but then invokes the fail-safe defense of convention-eve amendments. “It’s liable to be changed in 2016,” he adds.
To understand Haugland’s motives in this pursuit, one must be aware of his deeply-held belief that the current primary process is not reflective of the party’s core conservative elements. He thinks the open primaries conducted in New Hampshire and South Carolina – where any John Smith is allowed to vote, not just Republicans – derives from a progressive-era notion that dilutes the importance of an organized political party.
“I don’t like people ordering my meals for me, I like to make my own choices. I don’t like people nominating my candidate for me. Political parties are private associations,” he says. “The progressives have long had the idea that the voters should choose the candidates for office. That’s simply not found to be a proper understanding of the role of political parties. We’re not a direct democracy, we’re representative … We can’t all participate directly.”
A delegate driven process would force candidates to devote significant time to a smaller group of party elites around the entire country rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time in a handful of early key states that receive the bulk of the media attention.
If that sounds undemocratic, Haugland flips the argument and argues that the real modern day party bosses are the high-charging consultants and large dollar donors who power campaigns through an avalanche of television ads.
Having to chase delegates on a convention floor would suck the money out of the process and replace it with a market of ideas, placing poorly funded candidates on equal footing with the well-financed titans. Yes, Haugland’s self-aware enough to realize how quaint and unrealistic this sounds to naysayers in today’s era.
Haugland’s colleagues respect his intricate knowledge of the RNC yet they don’t believe one hiccup in a rule couldn’t possibly upend the entire system.
But a source tells U.S. News RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was interested enough in Haugland’s analysis of the rule that he summoned him to Washington for a dinner in late December that lasted several hours to talk it over.
Haugland won’t address that but says he’s getting through to enough Republican heavyweights to make them squirm.
“They’re like a duck on a pond. They appear calm on the surface and underneath they’re swimming like hell. They don’t know what to do,” he says.
They planned in advance to take away the voice of We the People.
Whoever has the most delegates should get the nomination. Even if that means my guy loses.
Everybody thinks it’s going to happen, but I think it’s still less than 25%. The RNC is not going to challenge Trump if he wants it.
The GOP plans to make millions of voters resentful and angry at the convention. What a bunch of self-serving parasites!
If Trump is not treated right by the RNC, he will make sure the world knows.
What if it’s the opposite?
I think you are missing the point. The RNC isn’t going to challenge him in the convention. And he is free to switch parties if he gets elected.
The RNC should be happy someone is helping register new GOP voters. Those new voters are not going to vote for Hillary Clinton this time.
Hope they enjoyed their time ruling us because after that they may need to get their resume in order.
Kasich is everything the GOPe dream about, a putrid, sweater wearing, kissy kissy, Globalist, Open Border, puke.
“For instance, it isn’t inconceivable to think that Gov. Chris Christie, R-N.J., could dominate the Northeast, with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. performing well in the South and Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wisc,, racking up victories in the Midwest”
Nailed it, two years out. Amazing !!
Curly Haugland to the People: FUCK YOU!
Nice find!! Thanks for posting this.
Oh, what a tangled Web they weave..
Who does Curley report to (boss)? How did he get into his position? What can we do to put Curley into an unemployment line?
He’s a N Dakota rep on the RNC. He helped set up the rules for the Rep. Convention. He’s just one example of the entrenched establishment machine that needs to be broken (figuratively, of course).
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