As I write this blog post, I am in our nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C., participating in a meeting of the Republican National Committee. It is an honor to been elected to serve as one of California’s three RNC Members (along with National Committeewoman Linda Ackerman and CRP Chairman Jim Brulte).
It’s no secret that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus has three goals to help win the presidency in 2016:
Reducing the amount of time Republican candidates can slice and dice each other is priority one. In the last several presidential elections, Republicans engaged in over nine months of brutal divisive expensive primaries. Eventually all candidates are worn out, their negative ratings skyrocket, and the “winner”is deeply in debt and badly bruised. New rules will reduce the mutual combat to 5 months – January to May.
The RNC Rules Committee, on which I serve representing California, voted nearly unanimously for the compression of the present primary system to five months today. We will continue to enjoy the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary followed by South Carolina and Nevada in the months of January and February. Then most of the action will take place between March 1 and May 15. Because California historically has a late primary its potential to influence presidential nomination outcomes will not change.
Reince’s second big idea is to have a much earlier convention. Romney had millions in the bank for the fall election and he could not spend any of it until after he was nominated in late August (due to arcane, complex campaign finance regulations). He had no money to spend for over 90 days while Obama blanketed key states with tens of thousands of vicious anti-Romney ads. One big reason Romney lost is that he was target practice for the entire summer.
Chairman Priebus is committed to having an early convention at the beginning of July.
However there is a rule that will not seat a single delegate if he or she is not certified within 45 days of the convention. A July 1 convention would immediately exclude the California delegation which wouldn’t be determined until the outcome of our primary in early June. This was of the great and of urgent concern to me, of course. Chairman Priebus appointed me to a special Rules subcommittee to work out these details last fall.
We approved today by a nearly unanimous vote in the Rules Committee a special waiver that would protect California and allow it’s full delegation to attend the convention. We can still have the June primary (unless the Democrats make an earlier, which is unlikely) , and attend the national convention in early July.
It is expected the full RNC membership will adopt these Rules changes tomorrow, Friday. But the burden is high. The Rules require that 75% of the full RNC Membership, not just those attending, must approve of these changes to become effective. Chairman Brulte, Committeewoman Ackerman and I are doing everything we can to make sure the California waiver is adopted by the RNC tomorrow.
Finally, the Chairman’s third goal is to reduce the number of crazy helter-skelter so-called debates.
In 2012, the 23 or so debates provided little valuable content and we’re generally run by liberal mainstream media ‘moderators’. The RNC is committed to sanction no more than 10 debates and each one with a fair-minded moderator. The specific rule has not been debated yet. A proposal will likely be brought to the RNC spring meeting in Memphis, Tennessee this April.
The RNC will offer candidates sanctioned debates. If a candidate chooses to go to a non-sanctioned debate , he or she is free to exercise their 1st Amendment right. But at a cost. Any candidate who attends a non-sanctioned debate risks losing half of his delegates. Attempting to reach millions of voters each time the candidate goes to a non-sanctioned debate he will lose 50% more of his delegates. At least that is the proposal currently being vetted. It’s a serious approach the one that will almost ensure that serious candidates will not want to violate this provision
To be effective and increase our odds and 2016, a compressed primary season with an early convention and reasonable number if debates would dramatically improve Republican chances.
As your volunteer National Committeeman I would welcome hearing any fresh ideas about he Presidential nominating system. Contact me at Shawnsteel@ShawnSteel.com. Friend me on Facebook and follow me on Twitter.