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.

Tags: , , ,

By eye | Comments (0)

Thompson on Security and Unity

October 5, 2007 – 1:50 pm

Fred Thompson’s campaign’s motto is "Prosperity, Security, Unity". He addressed the first of these during his main speech to the Americans for Prosperity. He addressed the other parts during a speech to the Virginia delegation.

Nothing special, but interesting to see the rest of his message.

I was struck, again, by how much the crowd wants to like him. He did pretty well with this event. He got a big rousing standing ovation.

Tags: , , ,

By eye | Comments (1)

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.

Tags: , ,

By eye | Comments (1)

What does state general election polling tell us?

August 23, 2007 – 11:54 am
  Virginia Kentucky Alabama
  vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided vs. Hillary Undecided
Giuliani  -3  5%  -5 7%  +6 6%
Thompson  -9 7%  -7  5%  +2  4%
Romney  -14 8%  -12  6%  -2  6%

Survey USA released a bunch more general election polling, commented on by the Hedgehog Report and DaveG at Race42008.  Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney were matched up against Hillary in Virginia, Kentucky, and Alabama. I have rearranged the data to show both margins and the %-undecided. SEveral things are worth noting.

First, the GOP is in bad shape in both Virginia and Kentucky due to reasons that have nothing to do with candidates. Kentucky has an election this year where a seemingly-corrupt Republican incumbent governor, Ernie Fletcher, is polling down 2-1. This election is probably framing people’s party identification strongly, and that election is in the papers on a daily basis. This poll illustrates the difficulties that Republicans have in that state. I suspect that once the catharsis of firing Fletcher happens, these numbers will adjust somewhat. Similarly, in Virginia, the state GOP has lost two governor’s races in a row with lousy candidates, and the state party has been rolled legislatively on taxes and transportation issues, the bread and butter. Virginia is now, again, a swing-state with popular Dem leaders.

In other words, Kentucky’s numbers are probably more result of the local environment, while Virginia’s actually represents something bad going on.

Second, these numbers show some important differences. Even in the South, Giuliani is performing in a tier above the other first-tier candidates, while Romney is polling a tier below the other first tier candidates. Romneybots will argue that this is due to name ID, but Gallup polling consistently indicates that Thompson’s name ID is lower than Romney’s but his performance in polling is (often substantially) higher. This is yet more evidence that Romney’s electability problem is real.

The inescapable conclusion is that people know things about Mitt Romney and don’t like him for it.

Third, these numbers are likely to move. People are going to learn things about Rudy Giuliani. (divorces, married first cousin, things about his record, etc.) that are going to move his numbers down. They are also going to learn things about Fred Thompson (thin record, blah blah) and Mitt Romney (flip-flopped on every issue in sight), but they both have the opportunity to frame that first impression.  In other words, Giuliani’s numbers will fall — they are a ceiling — while Romney and Thompson’s can still go up. Some.  The evidence suggests, however, that Thompson’s ceiling is higher than Romney’s.

On the other hand, there is probably nothing to learn about Hillary Clinton. After all, 3 books were written about her recently that were supposed to be interesting. They weren’t, and no one noticed.

In other words, these polls confirm our sense that things in some of these states are weird and that these will be tough elections. They don’t mean that much yet because so few people are paying attention. But we do know where some of the dragons aren’t.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

By eye | Comments (3)

Red states going blue?

July 9, 2007 – 12:57 pm

I missed these because I was in Florida at the Young Republican convention. Two stories about the GOP in light red states.

First, Marc Ambinder references an old poll that has Hillary up substantially in West Virginia:

A survey of 400 likely voters completed in May by the political consulting firm of Fabrizio, McLaughlin and Associates finds that if the election were held now 46 percent would be more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, 24 percent for the Republican candidate while 29 percent are unsure.

…

The research also shows that if the election were held now Clinton would carry West Virginia in a head to head match-up with McCain or Giuliani. Clinton beats McCain 41 percent to 34 percent with 25 percent undecided and beats Giuliani 42 percent to 36 percent with 22 percent undecided.

I knocked on a bunch of doors in Martinsburg, WV in 2004. The Bush appeal in WV was very simple: God, guns, and abortion. Voters told me that they supported George W. Bush because, for example, "He’s a good man and a good Christian." I have trouble seeing that same kind of feeling in West Virginia for any of the leading GOP candidates except, maybe, Fred Thompson.

On Saturday, WaPo ran a story about Virginia:

Slightly more than half of Virginia residents said they have an unfavorable view of the national Republican Party, including 60 percent of independents, according to the poll.

By comparison, 55 percent of residents, including half of independents, said they have a favorable impression of national Democrats.

These are bad, bad news for the GOP.

Tags: , , ,

By eye | Comments (3)