Posted by
Doug Van Duker on Friday, July 25, 2008 12:27:05 PM
As we head into the November election, many conservative Republican are still starching their heads and wondering, “How in the world did the media’s ‘moderate maverick of Arizona’ every become the Republican party’s Presidential nominee in 2008?”
I think that the answer is actually pretty simple. The first primary states are acknowledged as having a impact toward candidate selection that is wholly disproportionate the election process in November.
That’s true, but there is also a more important factor that is regularly and studiously ignored. Just who are these early primary “King makers?” The majority of the early primary states, those that proceed “Super Tuesday,” are staunchly liberal.
When was the last time Iowa, Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire, or Michigan, were red states? Iowa was carried by the Democrat 3 out of the last 4 presidential elections. Hawaii, Nevada, New Hampshire and Michigan are historically and predominately Democrat states–carried by the Democrats in all of the last 4 presidential elections. Of the 9 early primary states, two are historically Republican (South Carolina & Wyoming), one is a historical swing state (Florida), and the other six are all solid Democrat states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, Hawaii, and Maine). Represented by their votes in the electoral colleges, that’s 34 historically Democrat, 27 swing votes, and only 6 solid Republican votes.
The Democrats couldn’t have constructed a better process for guaranteeing the selection of a non-conservative Republican candidate.
The 2008 McCain Presidential nomination is the direct result of the Republican party permitting a group of small and historically liberal states–many with the practice of “open primary/caucus,” to effectively select our party’s Presidential nominee for us. Of the seven serious presidential candidates, there were only three left by Super-Tuesday, roughly 1 month after Iowa...all but one of the conservative candidates were eliminated for us by the early primary states.
I am certain that the Republican party constituency would be a LOT more excited about having a conservative nominee who espoused the party values than a liberal candidate who was selected for us chiefly by the media, cross-over Democrats, and “independents.” The cross-over Democrats and independents who sway the Republican nomination process in January, are unlikely to vote for the Republican candidate in November.
There are a number of answers to fix this obviously broken wheel. What really puzzles me is WHY the Republican Party National Committee refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem...–a necessary precursor to implementing any kind of serious fix.
Of the various ideas put forward, the one I like the best is the way most states organize themselves. The distribution of party convention delegates is based upon the number of registered Republicans in each precinct who voted in the last general election. Okay, so why not use the same reward system and hold 5 “Super Tuesday” style closed primaries; permitting those states with the highest percentage of Republican vote in the last general election to hold their primaries/caucus first? The first 10 states with the most per-capita Republican votes hold their caucuses or primaries on the 1st Thursday of January; about two weeks later, the next 10 states that delivered the highest percentage of Republican votes get their turn. This continues until about the end of February or the first couple of weeks of March, when the last 10 states, along with the US Territories & Protectorates (which ALWAYS vote Democrat –and don’t have electoral votes) get their turn.
It would be REALLY nice to have a ticket where the party faithful are not forced to vote for the “more conservative” of two liberal candidates —both of which have been given to us by Democrats by the current Party nominating process.