Process Fights
Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic shares this note from a Republican National Committee source that offers a peek at the larger issues at stake in this week’s RNC Chairman’s race:
Republican rules for the first time give the members of the Republican National Committee, by a 2/3 vote, the option of adopting a mandatory 2012 state primary election calendar.
States whose legislatures, which may be controlled by Democrats, refuse to schedule a primary that complies with RNC rules face a draconian choice.
Either their party gives up its presidential primary and instead holds (and pays for) a presidential preference caucus — or the state suffers a loss of 1/2 of its delegates to the 2012 Convention.
Many party leaders, who, for ideological or personal reasons, prefer a low-participation caucus rather than a higher-participation primary, see this Rule as a great opportunity to transform the party. (It would become more conservative.) [...]
So — the key factor in the RNC race is that the Rule must be presented to the RNC by a drafting committee largely appointed by the RNC Chairman and cannot be amended by the RNC membership.
Thus the new RNC Chairman could wield enormous power over the shape of the 2012 Presidential race and the composition of the 2012 convention which could adopt additional rules that would have even more impact on the future of the party.
This rule, incidentally, has already been passed, so all that’s left for the RNC members to decide is whose ox gets gored in 2012.
But the most fascinating part of this to me is how it drafts State legislatures into national-level politics: those States with a Democratic legislature are likely to either have fewer votes at the 2012 GOP convention, or the Republican parties in those states will see their bank accounts drained (and time wasted) by having to administer an election themselves. In this way, the national GOP is incentivizing success at the State legislative level, and scaling back the influence of more liberal States.
Of course, it creates a situation where the local parties are forced to dig a deeper hole for themselves financially where they have no control over the primary dates, but all of this seems to be a conscious decision that was laid out before the 2008 convention to change their process.
(The Democrats do something similar: additional delegates are awarded to those States with a strong percentage of voters going for the prior Democratic presidential candidate, and automatic bonuses are given to those states that schedule their primary at the end of the calendar.)
UPDATE: The actual election is on Friday, but check out this great, hands-on workshop that they’re offering tomorrow:
Awesome.