Well, tensions are certainly running a little high. Of course, this could all have been easily avoided, or at least partially averted, had our candidates not be forced to bend over backwards to prove that they are, in fact, more conservative than Jerry Falwell. With any luck, this will be the last year that our statewide nominees are determined by convention, because they are a disturbingly inclusive, absurdly terrible, incredibly self-defeating, and really, really, really dumb way of picking a nominee.
Before you click away, believing this to be yet another (deserved) rant against conventions, I will also explore how a primary would actually benefit each of the three candidates. But yes, I am going to talk briefly about why conventions are the biggest and easiest-to-fix obstacle to moving the Republican Party of Virginia forward.
One More Time: Why Conventions Are Amazingly Idiotic
As far as I can tell, there are two main arguments for a convention: they’re cheaper for the candidate and they ensure that conservatives choose the nominee.
The first argument has the merit of being true, but that’s really irrelevant, for a reason I like to call the Gilmore Syndrome of Idiotic Reasoning (GSIR). It goes like this: Let’s say there’s a candidate, we’ll call him Gim Jilmore. Gim isn’t good at raising money, and doesn’t have any money, so Gim wants a convention so he can have an easier time winning the nomination. But Gim fails to take into account the fact that he’ll still need money for the general election, and the state party fails to take into account that someone who can’t raise money and doesn’t have money wouldn’t make a good candidate.
As long as we continue to use conventions, we’re setting ourselves up for absymal candidates who have no chance of being competitive.
The second argument is harder to convince the Old Guard the error of their ways. Back in the run-up to the Gilmore/Marshall convention, Morton Blackwell said that conventions were necessary as a way to guarantee a conservative candidate is chosen. I did a post about it (which has since been lost in the purge) pointing out that the two “conservative” candidates we were choosing from were pro-choice and protectionist, respectively.
I think the best way to convince the Old Guard that conventions are terrible is to point to other states that, like Virginia, have open primaries. Included in that list are: Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas. Look at some of the Senators those states have produced: Jeff Sessions, Saxby Chambliss, Trent Lott, Jim Talent, Jim DeMint, Lamar Alexander, John Cornyn. I’m a real big fan of Sessions, Talent, Alexander, and Cornyn, but no one can argue that any of those aren’t suitably conservative, despite being in states that, like Virginia, have open primaries.
Now look at states with closed primaries, like Pennsylvania, Florida, and Oregon, which gave us Arlen Specter, Mel Martinez, and Gordon Smith. I don’t buy a correlation between open primaries and less conservative candidates.
As for the reasons why conventions are bad and primaries are good, those have been gone over again and again, but as a quick primer: primaries build up state-wide organization, build-up name ID, don’t force candidates to the far right, and are more inclusive for the party, which allows it to expand rather than contract.
Why Cuccinelli, Brownlee, and Foster Should Prefer a Primary
If I were on the staff of any of the three AG candidates (for the record, I’m not), I would have lobbied the state party to use a primary instead of a convention. Here’s the rationale for each candidate:
Ken Cuccinelli
Cuccinelli’s problem is obvious: he is perceived as too far to the right. While this may benefit him in a convention, it also hurts him in a general election against a well-regarded moderate like Steve Shannon. Now, a primary would still force Cuccinelli, et al., to prove their conservative credentials, but it wouldn’t force them to cater to the most activist and far-right members of the party, the ones who are likely to shell out money and a weekend to travel to Richmond. This would better set up Cuccinelli for the general election.
Looking at Cuccinelli’s detractors, they say that Ken is unelectable. I touched on that last time, but a primary would go a long way to easing concerns. Some say that Ken will only attract a narrow amount of support statewide; a primary could prove otherwise. Others say that Ken, despite being from Fairfax, will lose the NoVavote and only appealto rural Virginia. A primary would allow Ken to flex his NoVa muscles.
John Brownlee
Brownlee’s problem is also obvious: he’s never run in an election before, so his mettle as a candidate is untested. First-time candidates can be great, but they can also make rookie mistakes. A convention is a controlled environment, while a primary is more of a free-for-all. Winning a competitive primary, especially against someone like Cuccinelli, would be a great way to get his sea legs under him for the fall.
The other problem with being a first-time candidate is a lack of name identification. Reaching out to all voters in a statewide primary would by far more preferable than reaching only the party activists in order to remedy that for November.
Dave Foster
Whether it is a convention or a primary, Dave Foster would still be running third in a three-way race. But Foster would have more room for improvement in a primary. He would have an endless pool of voters that Brownlee and Cuccinelli likely would pass over, making his challenge a matter of turn-out, not competiting with the other two directly. And while Foster will have a hard time picking up Cuccinelli or Brownlee loyalists at a small convention, many voters who initially lean towards one of the frontrunners but is turned off by them attacking each other would consider Foster as an alternative. The 2006 Tennessee Senate primary is a great example, where Bob Corker ran and won against two more conservative candidates who had a veritable blood feud between them.
Part 1 covered the inanity of elecability arguments. Stay tuned for Part 3, which will chart each candidate’s likely path to victory in a convention.
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Feb 17th by VA Blogger
Excellent post, VAB.
Well said!
Yeah but how many primarys feature Sean Hannity, I prefer primary’s as they are great for testing your GOTV. I think conventions could work if they would stop weighting the votes and the party bosses would stop rigging the things (e.g Gilmore v Marshall)
Conventions invariable only attract people committed enough to spend over a hundred dollars and a weekend to travel to Richmond. That applies much more to activists than more moderate members of the party. I don’t think weighting has much to do with it.
Absolutely agree, VAB, with the post. I think you have a typo on #4 – didn’t you mean “conventions” attract the losers who, in turn, select the losing candidate?
Conventions make it look like we are a closed party. There are plenty of “real” Republicans who just don’t have the time because of work, family, or other obligations.
Besides, there is no greater act of activism than voting.
[...] instance of conventions that are held in Richmond for statewide office. Over at Too Conservative, VA Blogger gives two intriguing arguments for using primaries: The first argument has the merit of being true, but that’s really irrelevant, for a reason I [...]
Yes, thank you Lloyd.
Excellent post. You can see hints of the the Japanese approach to WWII in some of the arguments of the convention supporters. Japanese strategic thinking ran roughly thus: “What matters is not that we are a tiny chain of islands with no natural resources and no manufacturing–as long as we create an army of soldiers who are 100% spiritually pure and who are absolute fanatics, victory is guaranteed.” However, winning a war–or winning an election–is about much more than fielding an army of spiritually-pure fanatics. Furthermore, governing is more about filling potholes than anything else–or at least, it should be. As long as the party keeps having these conventions instead of a primary, we will continue to get poor statewide candidates. Except for this time, because Brownlee is going to win.
I don’t think that conventions always mean that we get poor statewide candidates. I just think that, on general, primaries generate better candidates than conventions, and does more to benefit the eventual nominee.
Thanks for the link, Chris:
http://masonconservative.typepad.com/the_mason_conservative/2009/02/in-which-i-agree-with-too-conservative.html
Quite correct, VAB. I meant to say conventions are considerably more likely to result in poor candidates.
#9
Thanks, Zach.
I didn’t realize Paul Protic and Suzanne Volpe were Japanese.
Well-stated,…especially on the matter of closed versus open primaries.
Overall,…excellent,…looking forward to part 3.
VA Blogger,
Your argument on open/closed primaries doesn’t hold water. Look at where the states you listed with open primaries are. I think that has alot more to do with the candidates chosen. Same with the closed primaries. Those states are much more liberal leaning in general and even in closed primaries it’s hard for a conservative to win. Last time Specter ran he almost lost in the primary to a conservative and some say it was his support from Santorum (a conservative) who put him over the top.
In areas where there is a widely diverse and fairly evenly distributed political spectrum (like VA) open primaries can be disasterous, especially if the opposition Party has an uncontested race.
I’m all for primaries, if we can have Party registration. If not, I’ll stick to conventions. It’s not that it’s my idea of a good time, but I will sacrifice to come up with the money and go to a convention because it’s important to me. If all parts of the Republican Party feel that way too, it should be a very fair way of determining our candidates.
Missouri and Tennessee have about the same complexion as Virginia does, as does Florida. The point is that it’s about the candidates who run, not about open or closed. And a primary of any sort encourages better candidates to run.
The fear of crossover voting is one the dumbest reasons to support a convention. The effect of crossover voting is extremely minimal, and has never once impacted the outcome of a primary.
I have long been in favor of primaries over conventions as seen on posts at RR…however, if you are going to have conventions you need to:
a) Eliminate the possibility of slating-which creates the possibility for really bad blood. Let all those who want to participate…participate! It should be noted that “instruction” has been eliminated.
b) No weighting of the vote for past elections. While rewarding areas for voting GOP is a reasonable consideration, what it effectively does is overrepresent rural areas and under represent the more populous areas…which is exactly where the GOP is getting waxed, and to which the GOP might want to have a greater awareness of what is wanted…
Bwana hit the nail on the head
By the way that formula actually works when you have a majority in the state. Its another relic of the 1990s and once again too many of the powers that be still think thats where we are
Since most neutral observers think VA is now a purple state conventions are the way to go.
NMM:
What sense does that make?
I bet he meant primaries are the way to go. Knowing his past comments, I’m sure that’s what he meant to say.
If we registered by parties in Virginia, I’d be okay with this… however, by having an open primary you are inviting Democrats to select our candidate, even though they will vote for the Dem in the general election.
A Voter, as I said, crossover voting has very minimal impact on primaries. I assure you, Democrats would not be selecting our candidates.
Whoops sorry for the confusion meant to say primaries instead of convention (typing too fast)
We had a local convention in Loudoun County back in 2007 and it was a real pain and dragged on forever.
Even Supervisor Delgaudio, while walking out, said that our local committee should not have one of these silly things again to determine local nominees.
Plus, as Jack Ryan, Steve Simpson, and Ken Reid showed, one can sign the pledge to support the Republican nominee and still file to run as an independent the next day.
Primary benefits Brownlee and Foster and grass roots campaigns and a Convention benefits Cooch by a landslide IMHO. If you want the model look at Gilmore’s selection. I firmly believe had it been a primary format, Gilmore never would have beat out Davis. But thats just me.
Look, for all of you supporting a convention…it’s like taking the big fish that ate up all the smaller fish in a fish bowl, and dumping that bowl into the ocean, where there are much bigger fish.
Why not primary the entire ocean to find out who the big bad fish is out there?
That’s an interesting analogy, TBM.
But does it describe the basics of a closed convention? Many people will approach their polling place, but only a few hardcore folks will sign up for a weekend in Richmond. (using the whole portion of the Republican voting public as a qualifier )
I haven’t even begun to go into the lists that are generated by the primary procedure. It is an invaluable source of staffing grassroots efforts precinct walks and phonebanks.
That just makes too much sense, BPM. And it doesn’t give the special “conservative” insiders the power they think they deserve.
Mr. Monk, Are you related to Thelonious Monk, my favorite all-time jazz man?
No, but I can sure dig his stuff.
Primary should be the way to go IMHO. The GOP will continue to lose I think if the convention is allowed to strangle the Party. The Dems are increasingly putting candidates who skirt the fringes of the GOP during campaigns to appeal to moderates and Indepedents. The Dems increasingly are considering pro-gun candidates for example here in other places in the South which you would never find in the Northeast. If these folks go to Congress they end up as bluedogs.
I think it would be a hoot at some point if the GOP put up a Pro-Choice Republican at some point down the road and we saw what would happen–not trying to offend the Pro-Life folks at all but in a Primary you would get that square-off and let the voters decide. In a convention setting that dynamic would never happen frankly. And I think most of us here have a level of honesty to understand just why that is.
I agree with Bwana that the rules at conventions should be more egalitarian (one person, one vote) vs. regionalism. I am open to considering such changes to convention formats until we have Party registration.
Great post, VA.
Quit complaining and run for State Central Committe and change the process to a primary next time.
Today’s collapse of the bold efforts to defund the butchers of Planned Parenthood of state tax monies underscores the need for our party to continue with conventions.
We need candidates who are committed Christians and who are pure on the life issues. Having a convention ensures pure nominees like Ken C. and Bob Marshall.
Titus.1
[15] To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.
Jeb–
Quit complaining about me complaining and become the owner of this site so you can change what you don’t like.
Unless you now believe that people who don’t have direct control over things should be able to speak their mind…?
RPV is doomed!
Yeah, VB, but Jeb has a point. It is very easy for us to sit back and carp about what goes on at State Central. But most of us are unwilling or unable to devote time and energy to doing anything beyond complaining. A major reason that the Party is in bad shape is that it has fallen into the hands of people who, in many cases, view it as a clique-ish social club for people who wouldn’t be accepted anywhere else. The difference is that, in this club, you get a death grip on the gateway for candidates who stand for high office in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. Not bad.
We are trying. At least in Fairfax the incumbents crushed the challengers for state central. It all goes back to once again who is actually going to pay money and show up to party meetings. The hardcore of the hardcore. Its a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Some great late comments at Mason Conservative on this matter:
http://masonconservative.typepad.com/the_mason_conservative/2009/02/in-which-i-agree-with-too-conservative.html#comments
Check comment #11, LI.
I saw that, VAB, I was just directing people there again. There were a couple very good comments at the end of the comment thread.
Thoroughly agree, the convention process leaves out many of us who cannot go to the convention for various reasons, job, finances or family and therefore it is run by a few who want to appear as the ultra conservative for the southern VA vote. The primary is the truly all republican voter to make their voices heard.