Newt Gingrich Is Right (NYT Ed on Fla)

NYT ^ | 12-3-12 | Rosenthal

[VinL]

You did not misread the headline; and it’s not just a truism about Mr. Gingrich’s political orientation, I mean he’s correct—that Florida’s winner-take-all primary system isn’t fair.

According to Republican National Committee guidelines, all contests held prior to April 1 must allocate delegates proportionally. But Florida, not wishing to change procedures or fall behind other states, decided to flout the RNC rule, which means that Mitt Romney will get all 50 of its delegates. Mr. Gingrich—who came in second—will get none. Under a proportional system, Mr. Romney would receive 23 and Mr. Gingrich 16.

Not only that, NPR has calculated that Mr. Gingrich would currently be leading his rival 39 to 32 overall (New Hampshire plus South Carolina plus Florida), if delegates were allotted proportionally.

Mr. Gingrich’s campaign, which has surely done the same math as NPR, has complained to the Florida G.O.P., and consequently left me in a rather unfamiliar position. For perhaps the first time in my life, I completely agree with the former House speaker and future moon colonist.

Mr. Gingrich might have raised this issue before the Florida primary, when some polls suggested he could eke out enough of a plurality to benefit from the winner-take-all system. I doubt he would care about the RNC guidelines if he’d managed to win, and I doubt Florida’s delegates will be instrumental in determining whether Mr. Romney or Mr. Gingrich earns the G.O.P. nomination.

But the point is that a candidate in a two-person, winner-take-all primary could get 49.9 percent of the votes, and receive no delegates, and that’s not right. As our editorial board has said many times, both parties’ rules should be rewritten to guarantee that the number of delegates a candidate receives accurately reflects his percentage of the popular vote. (snip)

[wardaddy]

nice

[aruanan]

The primaries are over and Mitt won and even Rush Limbaugh believes we need to get behind the nominee and focus our energies on going after Obama.

1. There is no nominee yet.

2. Except, according to the RNC rules that existed prior to the primary and that still control, Romney cannot be awarded all 50 delegates. In fact, according to the rules, if the state had not amended its procedures to proportional awarding of delegates before the primary, the results of the primary itself are void, since a winner take all state is forbidden to hold a primary before April.

[RainMan]

Riddle me this ... how is it fair that IA, NH, and SC all loose half their delegates for running primaries before April 1, AND they also have to do proportional ... and FL does NOT.

IF the contest is before April 1, they WILL loose half the delegates, and it WILL be proportional allocation. Otherwise, every state that has already run can say they are winner take all, and Santorum gets all the delgates from IA, Romney from NH, and Gingrich from SC. After all, thats only fair.

[Riodacat]

1. There is no nominee yet.

The Republican establishment begs to differ.

[absalom01]

Thank you. That’s a much better way to say it.

[Pelham]

That sums it up.

[chrisnj]

Rules only matter in Virginia.
Right!
rules in GA don’t matter at all - obozo doesn’t have to show up in court as ordered and doesn’t have to show any genuine hard-copy of bc to be ruled born in Hawaii thus nbc and has access to ballot!