Ray Haynes was the author, in 1999, of the change in the California Republican Party Bylaws that has brought us the current system of Republican National Convention delegates being selected based on local results in each Congressional District. He pens this commentary in response to a criticism of this method that appeared Saturday in the San Diego Union Tribune.
California has screwed up the entire presidential primary system, simply to satisfy the political ambitions of its politicians, who really wanted to extend term limits, and what does the San Diego Union Tribune criticize? The Republican method of choosing its presidential delegates, a system which, by the way, is used by a majority of the states in this country.
It used to take six months to choose a presidential candidate, and those candidates who didn’t start out well funded or frontrunners had a chance to build momentum and create a buzz to raise money and support. That is all gone, because California moved its primary from June to February 5 "in ‘order to be relevant." All of the other states, in order to stay relevant, once again, moved their primaries ahead of California, and thus our primary will once again be irrelevant, but the entire primary season will end in less than a month.
But that of course is not what the media criticizes, that would require them to expose the personal ambitions of the Speaker and the Pro Tem. Easier to criticize are the Republicans, who, in an effort to increase their ranks in California, changed the rules for choosing delegates.
Today, there are lots of Republicans running around East San Diego County, and Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and the Central Valley Counties. Lots of Republican candidates for lots of Republican offices spread the Republican message of hope, opportunity, liberty and freedom to a lot of non-Republican voters. These candidates don’t go to San Franscisco or Santa Monica, or South Central, because there are no votes there for them. As a result, thousands of Californians never hear the Repbublican message.
So California Republicans changed the rules for presidential candidates. Now, not just legislative candidates, but presidential candidates go to these areas, and talk about Republican values. Lots of voters, who have never heard this message before, are now hearing what Republicans have to say, unfiltered by the media, and they are liking what they have to hear. People are registering Republican in record numbers.
Maybe that is what has got the UT upset. Its good for Republicans, and it is smart politics. Why would they complain about that unless they have some other agenda.