Mine was merely a broad comment on the subject. I don’t particularly care how Democrats choose their Presidential candidate, but the GOP needs to frankly toss out the entire current method and start from scratch. I’m not addressing whether or not your specific comments have merit or not. One method I would pursue is that any candidates would have to be drafted to run (meaning Joe Blow or Gov. King Rino can’t just throw their hat in because they feel like it or have the big bucks). Names submitted before a super-gathering and pre-eliminated (something akin to what’s done in Utah political primary conventions).
Once the candidates are set in stone, the manner with which the order of the states vote needs to be thrown out. No more IA-NH-SC nonsense. The first two states aren’t reliable GOP states for President and have no business being virtually make-or-break for the candidates. From there, the byzantine method of how delegates are awarded needs to be also summarily tossed. It needs to be simple, clear-cut, and easy for NON-political people to understand. I consider myself a political expert and I cannot fathom this current system in place. Add to this that at both those pre-primary convention and the primary votes that they must be closed affairs. No “Independents” or Democrats crashing the party.
On top of that, no nominating candidates who merely manage to obtain a string of pluralities and are overwhelmingly unpopular to the base (you know whom I’m talking about) and merely getting a simple majority of the delegate votes isn’t enough to get the nomination, either. I would say 2/3rds of the delegates at the party convention MUST agree to the nominee. If they cannot agree, candidates that previously participated in the primaries or even new (drafted) names be put forward.
As an example... let’s say Willard gets to just, say, 60% at the Convention and cannot get above that figure. He is then tossed out of contention and new names put forward. A group of delegates put forth the name Scott Walker of Wisconsin and submit it to a vote, and 75% of the delegates agree. Walker is then made the Presidential nominee.
I, too, like the way which Utah runs their political primary conventions. What's not to like about a system which sent a RINO like Bob Bennett packing and gave us a firebrand conservative like Mike Lee? OTOH, I think the system works well for Utah because it is a small state with a very high level of political activity. Everybody knows everybody else and all that.
I wonder how it would work in a big state like Pennsylvania where the population and political interests are far more heterogeneous.
Maybe my proposal would be a stepping stone for moving us in that direction. All things considered, I agree that money plays an over-sized role in selecting nominees. But even worse is the over-sized role played by a mostly monolithic media and states with big populations which have a near zero chance of voting GOP in November, New York and California being the poster boys.
Then you have the attention whores like Iowa and New Hampshire. They are a lesser problem, in my opinion, because they are at least somewhat in the swing state status. But they do have an over-sized influence on the media coverage and perception of momentum.
1. Restore the hallowed GOP convention rule that was (I believe) in force from the time of Abraham Lincoln's first nomination or even Charles Fremont's until we came within a sliver (about 12 delegates) of stopping Nixon in 1968 with Reagan as the only other viable choice. In 1968, Nelson Rockefeller had more votes than Reagan on the first and only ballot but that was Nelson Rockefeller's ceiling and about half of what he needed to be nominated. He was hated by most delegates and party activists. Reagan was governor of what was then far more Republican California and was a younger and even MORE charming version of his magnificent self. Restore the requirement of 2/3 of the delegates to nominate. Then we will never have to worry about voting for a paleoPaulie to cause an open convention.
2. Republicans in many states are registered by public authorities and the lists are maintained by them. In other states like Illinois and many Massachusetts trashbag strongholds, NON-REPUBLICANS get to vote in Republican processes. Put a firm and final end to this. If the government authorities will not register party members, then the party itself may be forced to do so. Without getting into fine details, require six months between dropping a Demonrat registration and registering Republican and require the unaffiliated to register Republican at least one month before they participate in the GOP nominating process. Any state party that refuses loses its entire representation. The SCOTUS ruled forty years ago that for nominating convention processes including choosing delegates, PARTY RULES prevail over governmental legislation or regulation.
3. The requirement that candidates be pre-drafted to run and not merely farm the steers and queers of Wall Street for zillions in unidentifiable superpac cash and toss their hats in the ring regardless of track record or lack of principles (whoever can I mean?) sounds good but needs a lot more thought and specificity.
4. Require that (like papal election conclaves) the party PLATFORM ("The policy" at conclaves) be argued and enacted FIRST and only then does the convention move on to the nomination of candidates and that the final nominations not be official until the nominees formally swear to govern according to the enacted platform. This is a superb leadership principle.
4a. Explanation of #4 by analogy: Imagine, as is reasonable, that communists who had wormed their way into the papal household under the relatively politically clueless Pope Paul VI, were well aware of the lifelong anti-communism of Albino Cardinal Luciani who was elected as Pope John Paul I and murdered him by poison in the hope that his successor would be a political airhead and more manipulable. The second 1978 conclave is held, is driven by Poland's veteran anti-nazi and anti-communist primate who had been imprisoned by both nazis and communists Stefan Cardinal Wycinski who proposes a policy of retaliation against the soviets as the primary policy of the next papacy and Karol Cardinal Wojtyla as the pope to carry it out. Upon election, JP II fired the entire papal household staff in case anyone doubts what happened to JP I. While JP II had to survive two public attempts to assassinate him: one by a "traditionalist" schismatic priest at Fatima using a kitchen knife and the second far more serious attempt by heavy caliber handgun in Vatican Square by Mehmet Ali Agca (a Turkish fascist recruited and paid by the Bulgarian KGB acting on orders from the soviet KGB run by future soviet dictators Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov and Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev). The GOP, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, is subject to the election schedule in the constitution and does not get opportunities for makeovers in the event of non-immediate disasters.
5. Abolish caucuses altogether for the choice of delegates. If someone wants to be a delegate, they must run in primaries. If the state does not fund the primary, then the party must do so. Any state whose delegate process is other than by closed primary loses its entire delegation. Only in the even of death or disability may a delegate be replaced by his/her alternate moving up and the candidate's state vacancy committee choosing and qualifying a new alternate.
6. Establish these changes and see how they work, before any further but unnecessary changes.