GOP Contemplates Ditching First-in-the-Nation Primary

Killing the New Hampshire primary is critical to (4.00 / 1)

the extreme right's complete takeover of the GOP. Their favorite national candidates do not succeed here, in part because Independents can take a pink ballot on primary day. (That arguably means a candidate better able to win in November, but that is not the main goal of the ideologues.)

If you were Palin's campaign strategists, you would be working to ensure NH is not first in 2012.

Does Old John have the influence or even desire to protect it?

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by: elwood @ Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 05:42:02 AM CST

Rudy Guiliani: Exploiting 9/11 since 9/12 (4.00 / 6)

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by: Putney Swope @ Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 07:06:00 AM CST

Since We Have A Law... (4.00 / 3)

...requiring our Secretary of State to set our primary "...7 days or more..." before any other similar election, we'll be first in 2012 and 2016 and beyond.  We pay for our primary, and we can hold it whenever we want.  No other state nor the national parties have figured out a way to pre-date our primary since our "first primary" law was enacted in the mid-1970s, and they have certainly tried.  We're okay, despite what the national Republicans may try to do.  The party bosses don't tell New Hampshire when to hold our primary.

What we need to continue to do, however, is make sure the candidates keep on coming here so that our primary will continue to be relevant.  That John McCain bypassed Iowa in the 2008 cycle made our event even more important this time, but it also reminded us that candidates themselves decide where to run.  With that in mind, as long as we continue to have the largest voter turnout in the nation, AND we continue to show that we welcome all the candidates who come here, AND we ask intelligent questions and engage them one-to-one, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, they'll keep coming.

And the media will follow.  

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by: Rep. Jim Splaine @ Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 07:19:47 AM CST

My preference is for campaign managers to be banished (4.00 / 1)

from the process and, if not that, permanently silenced from contributing their self-serving opinions.

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by: hannah @ Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 10:57:15 AM CST

The problem isn't New Hampshire... (4.00 / 1)

...the problem is the GOP's preponderance of winner-take-all primaries. It was winner-take-all that made so many Republican candidates unviable so quickly in 2008.  

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by: jvwalt @ Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 20:11:49 PM CST

Well, that and the whole "preponderance of unviable candidates" thing. n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: Tim C. @ Sun Nov 22, 2009 at 07:11:56 AM CST

[ Parent ]

This really doesn't seem to be an option in either party at the moment. (4.00 / 1)

The comments emerging from the September meeting of the Temporary Delegate Selection Committee indicated that the RNC is not even considering stripping Iowa or New Hampshire of their first in the nation status.  Both the RNC and DNC (through the Democratic Change Commission*) are intent on changing the timing on when everyone else goes in 2012.  The battle behind the rules this time concerns avoiding the problems of 2008; mainly preventing other states from moving up, thus forcing Iowa and New Hampshire to consider unpalatable positions (from the perspective of the national parties).

DuHaime was invited to speak at the meeting in Washington this past week and not surprisingly provided a Giuliani-centric view of how the rules "should" be.  But the RNC is not contemplating this move.  Sure, they may talk about a radical revision of the delegate selection rules, and the primary process generally, but it is decreasingly likely that this will happen and threaten New Hampshire's position.

*For their part, the Democratic Change Commission is focused on starting the process later.  They have a tentative rule change in place that will prevent any non-exempt states (everyone but IA, NH, NV and SC) from going any earlier than the first week in March.  

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by: Josh Putnam @ Mon Nov 23, 2009 at 20:01:48 PM CST