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New primary system shakes up GOP
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| Contributor | Hikikomori Blitzkrieg! |
| Last Edited | Hikikomori Blitzkrieg! Mar 16, 2012 09:34am |
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| Category | Analysis |
| Author | Carl Leubsdorf |
| Media | Newspaper - Dallas Morning News |
| News Date | Thursday, March 15, 2012 03:45:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Another Tuesday, another round of inconclusive Republican primaries. GOP voters and candidates wonder how long this will continue.
The answer is a long time. That’s unsettling Republicans because they’re not used to protracted battles. However heated their previous nominating contests, it’s been 36 years since one lasted very long — the 1976 battle between President Gerald Ford and challenger Ronald Reagan.
But a significant change in the party’s nominating rules and the rise of the free-spending super PACs are threatening to extend the nominating contest to the final primaries in June and beyond. Both factors allow defeated candidates to remain in the race longer than they would have survived in the past.
Party leaders became convinced after John McCain’s 2008 defeat that short nominating fights were not necessarily beneficial because Republicans in most states never had their say. Officials felt the lengthy 2008 fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton was useful for Democratic party-building.
So they made two basic changes in the nominating rules.
First, working with the Democrats , they devised a calendar limiting the primary calendar to four months by allowing only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to hold contests before March.
Second, they encouraged other states to delay primaries until April, May and June by requiring those before April 3 to divide their delegates proportionally, like the Democrats have done for many years.
The effort to have a late start failed, because Florida insisted on scheduling its primary Jan. 29, more than a month ahead of the allowed schedule. As a result, Florida will lose half of its delegates.
The second goal succeeded. Many of the biggest states, such as California, New York and New Jersey, that held early 2008 primaries returned to their traditional dates later in the process. |
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