Confused about the 2008 Primary Schedule?

Hotline On Call has a post up about the relations between the RNC and the different state parties concerning the 2008 primary schedule. It's a good piece that I recommend you read to get at least some understanding of what is going on and why.

May 16, 2007

The RNC's Dilemma

COLUMBIA – The Republican National Committee is an unincorporated association of its 50 state parties. They’re kept on a loose leash; only 30 national rules govern their conduct. In the vacuum years – that is, the year before a presidential election when candidates begin to assert themselves – the national party is especially weak, and the state parties, correspondingly grow stronger. This year, at least five state parties are preparing to flout a national rule and schedule their presidential primaries in January. Technically, they can’t – the “window” through the RNC accepts convention delegates opens on Feb. 5, 2008. States selecting delegates before that date will lose half of their allotted delegates, half of their convention hotel rooms, half of their meal tickets. RNC chairman Mike Duncan says the rule will be enforced, and until the convention itself, is irreversible.

No matter: to these wayward states – Florida, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada and possibly Wyoming and Michigan – clout matters more than delegates, and the prospect of giving activists in their state a greater role in determining the identity of the party’s nominee is worth the risk. And why not? Parties are about elections, and, really, about one major election every four years. State party chairs are beholden to their state committees, to their state party’s wealthy donors, the aggregate preferences of Republicans in the state, and to the states
themselves.

Duncan has one arrow in his quiver. By September 1, parties must submit their delegate selection plans for 2008. At some point between September 1 and December 31, Duncan will put out the formal “call for convention.” States that haven’t submitted delegate plans by then could get nine tenths of their delegates taken away from them.
Several states might fall into the trap. New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Bill Gardner could theoretically announce in late November that he’s decided to hold the New Hampshire Primary in mid-December. Under that scenario, Iowa would rush to hold its caucuses a week earlier. South Carolina has tentatively scheduled its primary for Feb. 5; they would almost certainly move up by two weeks. Michigan would move; other states could abandon February for January as well. Several may decide to hold what one party chairman called a “non-b inding, binding straw poll” before the window opens and then “formally” choose their delegates later.

Can Duncan enforce his rules? Will it matter? Strategists for the major presidential candidates say that they’d welcome back all the delegates that Duncan took away from the party – an action Duncan says is “binding.” Rhetorically, Duncan asks: what formal power do the presidential candidates have?

I put that question to a senior strategist for one of the Republican frontrunners last night. His response: “What power does Mike Duncan think he’ll have when there’s a nominee?”

A confrontation looms. Duncan said he’s being pressured by some states to formally call for a convention as soon as possible, with the goal of pressuring out-of-line states to conform. Duncan wouldn’t show his cards, but did say, repeatedly, that “I intend to enforce the rules.”

Does it disturb him that some state parties don’t seem to care? “Does it disturb me? No. It’s part of a process that will, over time, self-correct.”

In the mid-90s, Duncan, then on the RNC rules committee, worked with chairman Haley Barbour to offer miscreant states a carrot – they’d get bonus delegates for staying within the window. This year’s delegate penalties are the stick.

Privately, some Republicans said that a convention floor fight about the primary calendar is the only way to resolve the impasse.

The pressure to give more states a greater voice is evident, as is the concern that that pressure is unwisely trumping a thoughtful, deliberate primary process that would produce the best nominee the party can find. Each state wants more influence; that compresses the schedule. Collectively, the less compressed the schedule is, the better. Compression can prevent a solid frontrunner from recovering from a stumble. It can also prevent a dark horse from gaining momentum. It could result in the party choosing a nominee who is manifestly un-electable.
Conservative activists in Iowa and South Carolina worry that the early Florida primary will dilute their influence. South Carolina worries, rationally, that it will no longer be the firewall state for non-Southern candidates. Party apparatchiks worry about the six or seven months between the nominee determination in early February and the convention in August.

Duncan said that RNC staffers are meeting regularly with their DNC counterparts, and that he’s invited DNC rules committee members to attend RNC rules committee meetings. The parties are weary of working together openly; they don’t want to collude and they don’t want Congress to intervene. (Congress doesn’t want to intervene, incidentally). But as institutions, the DNC and RNC face the same problem: how legitimate are they if they can’t enforce their own rules? [MARC AMBINDER]

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