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Politico: GOP Nomination Proposal Draws Critics

Contact: Kevin Roberts

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Politico: GOP Nomination Proposal Draws Critics

By: Michael M. Rosen

May 6, 2008 05:03 PM EST

A curious and unexpected geographic rift may be opening in the GOP ranks over primary voting in 2012. The controversy relates to a proposed scheme - dubbed the "Ohio plan" - for nominating a Republican presidential candidate four years from now.

Disturbed by the ever-advancing start date for the extended White House contest (this year, the Iowa caucuses took place in the first week of January) and by individual states' determination to leapfrog one another (this cycle, "Super-Duper Tuesday" on Feb. 5 featured balloting in more than 20 states), the Republican National Committee is mulling a comprehensive solution to a nettlesome issue.

The problem is that each individual state has an incentive to move its primary or caucus as early as possible so that the candidates, the media and their retinues will shower it with attention (and advertising dollars). As New Hampshire and Iowa cling perilously to their first-in-the-nation status, larger states clamor for recognition commensurate with their size.

While this current has always run through the primaries, the dam more or less broke this past cycle, arguably to the detriment of the candidates and the voters. The belief among many in the GOP, at least, is that the system is rapidly sliding toward a single, national primary - a dreaded prospect among candidates and party activists alike (more on that below).

Enter the proposed Ohio plan, under which a few things would happen.

First, no presidential primary would ever be held before the first week of February.

Second, New Hampshire and Iowa would more or less maintain their primacy, followed by South Carolina and Nevada.

Third, a group of some 20-plus "small states and territories" would always hold their primaries or caucuses first.

And fourth, the remaining larger states (including California, Texas, New York, Florida and Michigan) would be lumped into three "rotating pods" that would conduct their elections after the small states.

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It doesn't take a Californian like me to recognize that this system privileges smaller states. Here, for the first time in decades, our vote actually made a difference, coming as it did on the Super-Duper Tuesday that propelled Sen. John McCain to the nomination. So the Ohio plan, when I first heard about it, struck me as a raw deal for the majority of Republicans who reside in so-called "large states" - an impression that I confirmed after speaking with Ron Nehring, chairman of the California Republican Party.

Nehring pointed out that, while the chairman of the Ohio state party supports the eponymous plan, along with a plurality of the RNC Rules Committee (which approved the proposal), the chairmen of the Michigan, Florida and Colorado state parties are firmly opposed to it, along with the heads of "about a dozen" other state parties.

Ohio GOP chief Bob Bennett told RealClearPolitics' Reid Wilson that the debate boils down to one question: "Do you believe in retail politics, or don't you?" Ohio plan backers believe that the proposal will restrain the impact of money on the campaigns and amplify the effect of town hall meetings and the like.

But Nehring, who represents the biggest of the big states, commented to RCP that "the Ohio plan relegates states like California permanently to the bottom half of the batting order. ... I'm not going back to my state [to] tell Californians that they're permanently second tier."

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As an alternative, Nehring wrote in an e-mail, the similar Texas and National Association of Secretaries of State plans would group all states - small and large - into four groups that would rotate every cycle. Nehring himself hasn't committed to a particular plan but instead firmly opposes any proposal that would disadvantage large states such as California.

"Proponents of the Ohio plan argue that, since small states don't have much influence in terms of the number of delegates, they should get to vote early every time," he added. "This ignores the fact that not once in almost three decades have actual delegate counts mattered at the convention."

Far more important than delegate counts, Nehring contended, are momentum and press attention, which depend almost entirely on the sequence of the various primaries. "Despite the anachronism that is taking place on the Democrat side, momentum and early wins accounts for much more than the number of delegates one scores in a given state," he said.

Even so, party activists such as Nehring fret about the current system's ineluctable drift toward an early national primary. "Ideally, primaries should take place from March through June," said Nehring. "Under a national reform plan, we can move the overall primary schedule back later, reversing the drift to January that has taken place as a result of each state acting solely in its self-interest to vote earlier and earlier." 

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Link to article: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0508/10132.html

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