Overtones of VA GOP’s position on “Statement of Intent”

December 1, 2007 – 9:32 am

Last night the Virginia GOP passed a resolution:

The Republican Party of Virginia State Central Committee yesterday evening passed a motion requesting the Virginia State Board of Elections withdraw the “statement of intent” requirement before participating in the 2008 Republican presidential primary contest.

While the committee did request the Virginia State Board of Elections to withdraw the requirement to sign a statement of intent for the 2008 primary, State Central re-emphasized their commitment to closed primaries by passing a resolution supporting party registration in Virginia.

The "statement of intent" would have required that voters in the Republican primary pledge to support the Republican nominee.

Anyone who has been following VA GOP politics gets the irony in this. I suspect that what really happened is that pro-lifers revolted. They refuse to pledge to support Rudy who they see as a likely or probably winner of the VA GOP primary. The irony is that these are the same groups that are trying to close the primary, reiterated above. As a side note, the VA GOP wants party registration because it makes campaigning much easier.

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The strange anti-Romney push poll

November 16, 2007 – 11:38 am

Let me start with a story.

Several years ago, in a swing House seat, volunteers for the Democratic candidate, started calling the finance committee of the Republican candidate, three days out. The message? That the Democratic candidate was a Jew and "we can’t let another Jew get in office." The Democrat volunteers identified themselves on the call as Republican volunteers. The Republican campaign was inundated with outraged phone calls from the finance team demanding that they stop. A couple of hours later, the Republican campaign obtained solid evidence that it was Democrat volunteers. And the Republican candidate called the Democrat candidate and threatened legal action of the calls didn’t stop. The Democrat candidate denied having anything to do with it, but the calls stopped within about 15 minutes of the calls.

The point is that sleazy, disgusting things happen in the world of telephones. And in the hurly-burly world of politics, there are plenty of examples of things not seeming what they are. And they involve vile attacks, usually bigoted, hitting highly targeted lists of people.

I use that as an introduction to the whole IA/NH anti-Romney push poll stories. Phil Elliott at the AP and the Politico’s Jonathan Martin have stories about this. Several facts jumped out at me that make it clear that this is a made for outrage, made for media thing.

First, they called a Romney supporting IA State Rep. From the AP story:

In Iowa, Romney supporter and state representative Ralph Watts got a call on Wednesday.

"I was offended by the line of questioning," Watts said. "I would be equally as offended if someone called and said in the nature of if, ‘you know the Catholic Church supported pedophile priests.’ I don’t think it has any place in politics."

My educated guess is that Rep. Watts was put on the list because he would report it to the Romney campaign and the media. I would assume that the next call by Rep. Watts was to the Romney IA state director. Again, made for media and made for outrage.

Second, the questions. It seems clear that there was an attempt to link this to the John McCain campaign. How do we know? According to Jonathan Martin, a bunch of the questions were positives about John McCain. Did McCain do this? Of course not. It doesn’t make any sense for them to be doing these in Iowa, where they basically aren’t competing. They are low on cash. And everyone knows that John McCain is a war hero. What’s the plus? Furthermore, as recent activity as indicated, they understand that they need to go through Rudy Giuliani, not Mitt Romney.

Third, there was also an attempt to muddy the waters by linking it to former vendor for Giuliani’s pollster. Although there is plenty of evidence that the Giuliani campaign is not behind it, at least not directly.

I have another question. If someone is trying to slime Mitt Romney with his religion, do they really go to a Utah-based call center run by people in Romney’s world? Wouldn’t they know that it would get out? What does it tell us if it doesn’t?

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RNC punishes 5 states? Really?

October 22, 2007 – 5:30 pm

Ummm. Not so much. Why?

Well, first, listen to Mike Duncan’s lukewarm statement, as reported by Jonathan Martin:

Letters went out this morning warning New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming that they were "on notice," Duncan said in a conference call with reporters. 

Duncan did, though, emphasize that the move was a preliminary one.  ""We always believe in redemption," he said.

Second, the candidates aren’t taking it seriously:

Republicans have been far less aggressive about punishing states that are holding contests outside the window and Duncan sought  to drive that point home, noting that they were only taking away half the delegates of the five states as opposed to the Democrats who are stripping Michigan and Florida of all their delegates.

The rebuke from the party is also undercut by the candidates themselves.  Unlike the Democratic hopefuls who’ve pledged not to, each of the top GOP contenders is campaigning in Michigan and Florida. 

Third, there’s actually a process. Jonathan Martin’s update says:

Two clarifications.  First, the ultimate decision will be made at the Republican convention next September by the delegates there. …

More broadly, and I get at this above, few plugged-in Republicans think that these states will, in the end, be punished by losing half their delegates.   Whoever the nominee is won’t to, upon accepting the nomination, invite any undue headaches by ticking off such key general election states.

Let’s be super-anal-specific here. The RNC’s Executive Committee made a recommendation to the RNC. Which will have a meeting in January or …. February? Maybe after February 5th? When a nominee is basically clear. And that RNC meeting will be an opportunity for people to come together.

At that point the RNC is supposed to vote to recommend stripping states of delegates? After the nominee is picked, when there is absolutely no significance to the vote whatsoever? You are kidding me right? And then the Chair is going to go through with it? Even though it is irrelevant?

This is never going to happen. It won’t even get to the nominee.

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Beyond 2008: Redistricting

October 15, 2007 – 12:02 pm

John Fund wrote about the future of 20% of the US Economy and over 10% of the population:

Tony Quinn, co-editor of the California Target Book, a nonpartisan analysis of state politics, says that if Democrats retake the governorship after Mr. Schwarzenegger’s departure in 2010, it’s "pretty clear" that they would use their control of the Legislature to push for the mother of all gerrymanders. "Democrats will use their mapmaking power to try to achieve a two-thirds majority in both houses of the legislature, thus wiping out the ability of Republicans to influence budget and tax legislation, which require a supermajority to pass," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times.

The Dems might have the power to do this because of a failure to take up a non-partisan redistricting proposal. So the Gov. has to push it:

He argues the political climate will be different in June 2008 than it was in 2005. Back then less than 70% of Republicans supported the overly complex measure proposed by their own party’s governor. But today Mr. Schwarzenegger’s approval rating is 59%, 25 points higher than in 2005. The Legislature’s approval numbers have hovered around 30% throughout the last three years. At the same time, support for the general idea of taking away the power to draw districts from the legislature has remained popular with voters, who support the general idea by a 3-to-1 margin in most polls.

This failed in 2005 because the Dems spent $250m on fighting the Governor’s proposals. (The Chamber also screwed him. They didn’t want to spend the money) But they can try again. And they should. And Republicans should support this precedent. The rest of the country can’t afford to let California turn dark blue.

Several other states could benefit from this (from a Republican perspective). Illinois, where the Dems are likely to go after Rep. Mark Kirk. Probably New York. On the other hand, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida all have partisan gerrymanders that go the other way. It is a mess. But it is probably the right thing to do.

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Rotten boroughs in California

October 8, 2007 – 10:33 am
District Winner Total Votes
California 34 (Los Angeles) D+53.6 74,818
California 31 (Los Angeles) D+100 64,952

Neil Stevens has an interesting post at Redstate about "Rotten boroughs" in California, among other states. He points to some interesting issues. He points to illegal immigration more than I would and less to legal immigrants in the Los Angeles area, in particular.

I want to point to a different thing. The Caifornia GOP primary is winner-take-all by congressional district. That is, in some of these districts, like the ones to the right, there are 4-1 D-to-R registration rates. Assume turnout that is half of general election turnout. In CA-34, we are talking about 7,000 voters in a GOP primary. In CA-31, it is closer to 6,000.  If it takes 40% to win these primaries, that means about 3,000 votes in CA-31 and 2,500 in CA-34. Compare that to heavily GOP districts in which 60k or more voters will allocate those delegates.

Is that right? Are the campaigns really prepared for the rotten boroughs of California?

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Court invalidates VA nomination laws

October 2, 2007 – 3:46 pm

This is sort of interesting. In Virginia, incumbents are allowed to pick the process by which nominations for their seat are made. A part of that law was struck down. There is also no party registration. The 4th Circuit said that the law is unconstitutional, as applied, when the incumbent picks a primary as the nomination process:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit handed down a ruling today in the case of Miller v. Brown affirming in full the decision by Judge Hudson of the U.S. Dist. Court for the Eastern Dist. of Virginia that the Commonwealth’s open primaries law is unconstitutional (at least with regard to instances where an incumbent selects a primary as the means of nomination and the political party committee is forced to use a method by which it is prevented from excluding voters with whom they do not want to associate.)

The appellate decision goes through a list of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on this issue and makes clear that a state must have a compelling interest for it to interfere in a party’s political nomination process and that is a high burden for a state to meet.  However, in Virginia a party can use means other than a primary to select a nominee and those means can be tailored to exclude non-party members.  It is only when a committee is directed by an incumbent to hold a primary and that primary must be open in accordance with state law that the committee’s First Amendment rights of association are violated.

It seems that the court is saying that one primaries require party registration. That seems like a lot to find in the Constitution.

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States will get full delegates

August 28, 2007 – 9:43 pm

Somehow, I am not all that impressed by the fight over the national parties stripping delegates from state parties who will have primaries prior to Feb. 5th.

Last week, the story was Florida and the Democrats. This week, it appears to be the Republicans and Florida, South Carolina, and New Hampshire.

How long will it take for all the candidates to commit their delegates to voting for seating full delegations?

This is a problem in theory, but not in practice.

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Another view of North Carolina delegate allocation

August 13, 2007 – 1:33 pm

The member of the North Carolina House who was manager for the bill has a different story [emphasis in the original]:

As the House member handling Senate Bill 353, which purported to allocate North Carolina’s electoral votes by Congressional district, with two votes reflecting the North Carolina’s popular vote, I moved this bill back to House Election Laws Committee after a successful vote on 2nd reading on the House floor but before the final vote on 3rd reading. The reason is NOT because of Howard Dean’s call, but rather because we did not have the votes to pass the bill on 3rd reading. Several Democrats who supported the bill on 2nd reading indicated to me they received tremendous pressure from constituents to change their vote to NO on 3rd reading. There were enough Democrats changing their positions to shift the balance against the bill’s passage. By moving the bill back to committee, we enable the House to consider it during the short session.

This should make it clear just how close this is to passing. Therefore we should continue to push in California and push the grassroots in North Carolina to push back on this. Let’s make it clear that a vote for this bill is a vote for Hillary Clinton.

And the situation in Caifornia is becoming increasingly interesting. The Christian Science Monitor has a story, and it looks like they are focusing on the June ballot:

In California, the measure’s passage would probably be determined by voter turnout, and that could favor Republicans, experts say.

"The state will have just voted in February, and there is no US Senate race so June turnout will likely be low, which works against the Democrats," says Quinn. Democrats, who usually argue for more fairness in elections and the end of the electoral college system, are in a quandary over how to fight this, he says.

"The Democrats are being hoisted on their own petards," says Quinn. "They say, ‘Let’s make elections fairer,’ and Republicans are saying, ‘Okay, let’s do it this way,’ and Democrats are beside themselves because they know what it will likely do."

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Don’t stop electoral college reform in California!

August 7, 2007 – 5:22 pm

Redstate’s Erick Erickson noted yesterday that the electoral college reform in North Carolina stopped because because Howard Dean realized it would give them no feet to stand on in California:

The measure raced through the North Carolina State Senate, the State House was preparing to pass it and the Governor was prepared to sign it, until Howard Dean intervened.

All is good, right? Nope. Reread that carefully and note below:

There is a similar measure out in California, which would guarantee the GOP candidate about 20 votes. The Dems cannot honestly oppose that effort if they support the one in North Carolina. So they aborted the North Carolina measure.

So, all stop on the Electoral College reforms. The Dems don’t want a Republican candidate to get any votes out of California.

The Dems could restart this in what? 24 hours? What if they do that in September of 2008? Therefore, the California initiative has to continue to keep the Dems honest. (unlikely I know…)

Perhaps it should be on the November 2008 ballot just to keep things clear. (although that reduces chances for passing. Perhaps both June and November ballots…)

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Club for Growth slams Huckabee

August 2, 2007 – 4:54 pm

For the critical week of recruiting before the Ames straw poll, The Club for Growth is attacking Mike Huckabee.  They have details here.

I think that this is going to hurt a lot. People who are still undecided and just show up are going to see this. And, like all Club for Growth ads, it is outrageous enough to get some free replays of its own. The Bill Clinton comparison should do that.

It is also interesting that this tries to be a grassroots lobbying style 501(c)(4) intervention. Can you do that? After all Huckabee can’t vote for the House bill, H.R.1077, discussed. This looks like straight political advertising.

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