Posted on 08/26/2015 8:33:31 AM PDT by JediJones
The state party's executive committee voted Friday to eliminate the presidential preference poll held during the party's March caucuses. That means there will be no official count of who won that contest.
The vote was unanimous and drew little attention until it was reported by The Denver Post on Tuesday.
State GOP Chairman Steve House said the change was made in response to a new Republican National Committee rule that would have made the presidential preference poll binding.
The executive committee decided that would bring too much formality to the caucuses, which have drawn criticism in the past for being too easy for fringe candidates with small but motivated groups of supporters to overwhelm.
House acknowledged the party is essentially surrendering its early role in the presidential nominating contest.
"In this particular year, people are looking to (see) how can we be relevant if something unusual happens."
Colorado Democrats have made no changes to their March 1 caucuses, which still include a presidential preference poll.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Agreed that this rule from the national GOP seems good, but the problem here is Colorado trying to avoid the rule by eliminating a vote for the presidential nominee entirely. They are sacrificing the ability for their rank-and-file to vote for the purpose of allowing the potential hijacking of their delegates to take place.
True. My point was that the national party actually (incredibly) gets that the 2012 primaries were a disaster.
Agree. This type of thing is going to continue, to more and more states.
It’ll be interesting to see which folks here will support more of the GOPe backstabbing, just as long as it keeps Trump out. Talk about hypocrisy.
They get that they were a disaster for Mitt. Every rule change was made looking at what would’ve helped Mitt sail through easier. That meant stopping Ron Paul’s shenanigans, making it easier for the candidate with the most money to sail through and arranging the primaries so that the conservative states have to split the delegates while the liberal states are winner-take-all.
Some of those steps, like drastically lowering the number of debates, have backfired because Trump turned out to be the big money candidate. Right now they would happily add on more debates so that they’d have more chances to knock Trump down without needing to spend money.
“The GOP-E of Colorado knows what’s best for Colorado, Coloradans, and all Americans, legal and illegal, they’ve been told by Reince Prince and the RNC. Jeb Bush would approve of this comment”.
That’s exactly right. Not much different than Chicago or any other “machine”.
“Jeb Bush would approve of this comment”.
You sure nailed that, too.
ping
In a year like this one that is a dangerous game if they do betray the voters for the rino. The GOPe is playing at their demise if they betray voters.
>> They get that they were a disaster for Mitt. Every rule change was made looking at what would’ve helped Mitt sail through easier. <<
That’s simply the opposite of reality. Paul stole elections from Romney’s strongest competitor, not Romney.
And requiring early states to split delegates prevents a plurality candidate disliked by the majority from winning those states outright. Delegates are always freed as the candidates drop out, so this will do little in helping an establishment candidate win some 2-candidate down-to-the-wire win. What it *will* do is make the delegate total more closely related to the popular vote, which will help a natural not-Romney win.
So it is worthless to vote in the primary this year since I currently live in Colorado?
This really is overboard.
You don’t get to vote for a presidential candidate at all. Apparently there is a delegate selection process you have to stick around for in the caucus that Ron Paul hijacked last time. All you can do this year in Colorado is try to select delegates who you think will back the candidate you like.
But they had to stop Paul from doing it this time in case it hurt their preferred candidate. Paul is just as interested in stealing from the GOPe’s choice as other insurgents.
The issue with the delegate-splitting is that almost all the conservative states come during the proportional period and almost all the blue liberal states come during winner-take-all. That means the states conservatives are likely to win will lose delegates to the runners-up, but the states RINOs are likely to win will get all the delegates, leaving nothing for the conservatives.
I expect if the schedule looked different, and conservative states were voting later more often, they would’ve kept them all proportional.
It’s easier for the RNC to rig a Presidential prefence vote than a caucus vote for delegates. This will probably help Rand Paul in Colorado. If it comes down to a “brokered” convention, I’d expect the delegates to eventually go with Trump over Bush.
Fascinating. Now I’m not sure if I’m gonna bother to temporarily change registration from Libertarian back to Republican to try to get to State. Might anyway. Would be great if there WAS a war: I’m simply not someone who can be pressured.
Oh, and I’d go as a firebrand delegate to support Trump.
“Eliminating this poll should therefore result in a turnout that is about 1/4 of the usually dismal number. “
Indeed. But that should work in favor of activists trying to get to State. I’ve done that in the past and will try again. Oh, and my guy is Trump.
From your mouth to God’s ear. I hate the fact we now have caucuses.
You should probably make your decision pretty soon. Most state parties have a requirement that you’ve been a registered Republican for X amount of time if you want to be a delegate.
Looks like it’s 60 days in Colorado and the Pub caucus is 2/2/15.
The sooner the better. I don’t know much about Colorado, but I know that in 2012 and 2008 , many state GOPs would play games like intentionally using older membership lists to keep out Ron Paul delegates/voters — even when they had technically been members long enough.
Based on reports from Virginia and the Carolinas, the RNC is instructing state GOPs to use dirty tricks against the Trump campaign this cycle.
Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
The primaries were the only reason that I can think of to stay with the GOP. It may be time to change my registration. I will not, under any circumstances vote for Bush. It ain’t happenin! If nobody shows up for third party, the Dems get my vote this time. If there is no real, conservative leadership this time around it will be time to flush it and start over anyway.
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