Calendar stuff and new goofy GOP delegate selection processes

February 8, 2007 – 8:05 am

First, Bill Gardner, the NH’s Secretary of State is set to move up the New Hampshire primary to January 14th, 2008. Iowa would then have to move up too, as David Yepsen notes. There’s an important undercurrent here. Both of these are swing states, and the DNC rules would strip both of these states of their delegates if they move up. In both of these states, protecting their special status in the Presidential nominating process is important enough to be something that people actually vote on. If the Democrats are on record opposed to the New Hampshire primary’s status, it could make it easier to win back a lot of those seats that the GOP lost in 2006.

Second, Wyoming is fighting to tie for second with New Hampshire. Really. The Wyoming GOP passed a resolution at their last executive committee meaning to have half of their delegate selection on the same day as New Hampshire. The AP says:

That’s what the Wyoming Republican Central Committee had in mind when they voted Saturday to hold their county conventions — used to select half of the state’s delegates to the Republican National Convention — on the same day as the New Hampshire primary.

The rest will be selected in a regular primary. There are several interesting things going on here. First, this gives the party apparatus more power in the selection process. It is not clear who that favors because the Wyoming GOP is notoriously more libertarian/socially moderate than the rest of the country. In recent years, they actually stripped the abortion plank out of the platform.

Third, and perhaps more interesting, there is a similar movement afoot in California at the California Republican Convention this weekend. Last week, Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, a leader of the Conservative California Republican Assembly, sent out a letter saying:

There is a 50-50 chance that the Legislature will vote to move up the June 2008 primary to February 5, 2008. This move will cost the taxpayers $90 million, more than double the November 2005 special election’s costs, because there are no regularly scheduled elections in which to consolidate that election.

…

If this early election doesn’t happen, you may hear of a proposed by-laws change on the floor of the convention that will allow us, the Party’s members, to select 53 of California’s presidential delegates out of the 165 at our convention a year from now. That would be one delegate for each Congressional district.

This will fail. However, it will put a taste in people’s mouths and a thought in their minds. In September, the RNC has a rules cutoff. Until that point, any state party may change its delegate selection process. Given how tight the contests may be, with strongly differing perspectives between insiders and the primary electorate at-large, there may be more attempts to change the rules to help or hurt various candidates.

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California moving up

January 21, 2007 – 6:41 am

This is big and complicated. California is strongly considering moving up to February 5th. This will have an enormous impact on the race. First, the money barrier to entry just got a lot bigger. A lot. California is really really big.

Second, the rules, on the Republican side, in California are quite strange and still in flux. California has a winner-take-all by-congressional-district system. Therefore, the guy that gets 20k votes in a hard Democratic district gets as many delegates as someone who gets 100k in a hard GOP one. So gaming out how to play in California will be quite complicated.

Third, the rules for the primary may be changed. There has been speculation in several directions. We really just won’t know until the California Republican Party convention in February.

And fourth, some background. What the LAT story does not tell you is that this is getting pushed by the legislature because there may be an attempt to repeal term limits. By making an early primary, like this, there will be an opportunity to put that question on the Feb 2008 ballot in time for legislators to file for their regular June primary if term limits are repealed.

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Florida moving … to January?

January 12, 2007 – 7:34 am

This is remarkable:

Lawmakers said Thursday they want Florida’s primary pushed up to January 2008 to increase the state’s political influence, but they may face retribution from the national Republican and Democratic parties.

If that happened, Florida Democrats would lose all their delegates at the convention, according to current DNC rules.

This will be fun. You also have to wonder who is behind this? This, again, raises the money bar quite high.

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Illinois moving up too?

January 10, 2007 – 2:36 pm

According to Capital Fax, Illinois may move up to February 5th too. Another big state and another expensive media market. It just gets harder to not be a top-tier candidate.

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The Calendar, Compression, and who it favors

December 14, 2006 – 9:59 am

Jerome Armstrong, at myDD, and Kos have started to write on the primary calendar. They have both argued that, to some extent, it favors John McCain. Two points should be made.

First, it won’t be as compressed as it looks. There is strong evidence that New Hampshire will move up to January 7 on the principal that:

  1. The only primary or caucus that can proceed it is Iowa.
  2. They will 7 or may days in front of any other contest.
  3. They will skip Iowa if they have to
  4. They will be on a Tuesday

My understanding is that this is the public position of Bill Gardner, NH’s Secretary of State. And all that has to happen in NH to fix the day is Bill has to write a letter. That day would be Jan 7. And I don’t think that Bill Gardner cares what Howard Dean would do. The showdown at the DNC when the Credentials Committee strips New Hampshire of its delegates because of a 90% position in the electorate of NH would be amusing, to say the least. My understanding is that this is all conventional wisdom now in New Hampshire.

So what would Iowa do? Move up too. Not to December 31st or 24th, for obvious reasons. So…. The 17th? The 10th? Of December? 12 months away? Yup.

So my prediction is:

  1. Dec 17th for IA
  2. Jan 7th for NH
  3. Jan 28th for SC
  4. Feb 5th for everyone else

With a strong chance that Michigan tries to move up to the 28th.

Now on to the question of who this favors. If there’s 3 weeks between Iowa and New Hampshire and 3 weeks between New Hampshire and South Carolina (and no one else moves up) then an insurgent winner in IA could have a chance in NH and SC. But the wall on February 5th is hard to climb. It costs a lot to compete in Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, and New Jersey. Name ID will have to be purchased. And people on the ground now (or almost now) will matter. That puts a premium on money and organization now. That’s why poor insurgents like Sam Brownback and Newt Gingrich will shape the debate but it is still a 2 or 3 person race.

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NJ Moves up to February 5

December 5, 2006 – 12:07 pm

New Jersey just moved up their primary to February 5th, according to the Philly Inquirer:

So the Senate yesterday voted 33-5 to move the 2008 primary date up a few more weeks to Feb. 5, putting it after only the Iowa and Nevada caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. At least six other states also plan to hold primaries that day.

…

Feb. 5 is the first date at which states besides New Hampshire and South Carolina can hold primaries. Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Alabama, Arkansas and North Carolina are among states planning to hold primaries that day.

This is almost certainly a Democrat/Clinton pushed operation. Her Obama strategy is almost certainly to move up big states. It may have a residual impact on the GOP side. This may help Giuliani.

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One further point on the calendar regarding Rudy

November 28, 2006 – 11:08 am

I know that I’ve been beating this dead horse, but something should be pointed out. While, I am still not convinced that Rudy Giuliani could put together an operation that raises $100m by, say, November or December 2007, these changes make him more competitive.

His strength will be media, bypassing the grassroots apparatus that make Iowa and New Hampshire so unique.  All the talent getting sucked up in NH, SC, MI, and IA matters there. But is it the same in CA or FL? I doubt it. Recruiting the grassroots network in CA or FL to really make the difference is hard. It is relatively easy in the others.

Interesting.

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What do big state calendar changes mean for NH?

November 27, 2006 – 2:26 pm

I recently wrote about the changes that big states changing their primary date will have in terms of increasing the amount of money required and thereby creating a higher barrier to entry. But there’s are several strategy points here.

First, the schedule for all practices purposes would be IA followed by big states. This would mean that IA would set the tone and establish the field. If NH is only 1 week before CA or FL, then most of the people in CA or FL will already have made up their minds by Wednesday or Thursday before their elections. Therefore NH won’t matter.

In terms of GOP politics, Mitt Romney — who I predict will win IA after spending 1 week there — will benefit from the schedule. But NH, which McCain will win, will want a role and Bill Gardner may yet change the schedule. Again, a similar dynamic may apply on the Democrat side, although I think that Hillary’s money advantage still becomes prohibitive.
Therefore, here’s a prediction: If CA and FL move up their primaries, then NH will move ahead of IA. You read it here first.

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Money boxing people out?

November 27, 2006 – 9:59 am

The Boston Globe has an interesting article about a number of big states moving up their primaries:

Political leaders in California, Florida, and Michigan are gaining momentum in their efforts to move up the 2008 presidential primaries in their states to shortly after New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary, which could lead some candidates to focus less attention on the Granite State and trigger a dramatic increase in the cost of early campaigning.

This will have a dramatic impact on the race. Money organizations will matter more. On the GOP side, this makes it harder for the Newt strategy to be viable (how does he get the $75m it takes to buy all of that TV?) and the helps Romney. (I have written on this before regarding California and Romney) This makes it more likely to be a McCain versus Romney showdown. Giuliani has not demonstrated the financial infrastructure necessary to put a hundred staffers in each of these states and $30-50 million (although RudyBlogger may disagree). McCain will have that apparatus. And Romney can cut a check from his own pocket if he needs to.

On the Dem side, the same calculus holds. The rise of Obama hurts Edwards’ Hillary-slaying capacity and Hillary’s money matters more. If Hillary survives the early states, Edwards will not be able to raise the money to stop her.

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California moving up too?

November 13, 2006 – 12:10 pm

The NYT reports on this:

California lawmakers from both parties, hoping to give the state more say in the nominating process, are considering moving the presidential primary from June to a date nearer the New Hampshire primary in January.

(Incidentally, I don’t think that this can be right because the Dems changed their rules to strip delegates from states that pick delegates before Feb. 5) The catch is, of course, that this is an expensive media state:

Nonetheless, mischief-making with the country’s primary calendar would doubtless cause consternation among national party officials and candidates from both parties. California is one of the most expensive markets to campaign in, and an early primary date would require huge expenditures early in the season.

If California moved up that quickly, it would almost certainly shut off all but the front-runners from even running. If there are GOPers in California who are working on this, they must be thinking that this helps Romney. He spent a lot of time in Cali this fall. And he has natural allies with the powerful Mormon bloc in the California Republican Party. For the Dems, I would assume that this would be a pro-Hillary strategy. Who else could raise $30-40 million that early?

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