Rarely would anyone on this side of the fence agree with the Washington Post concerning a political analysis or view on Virginia’s GOP. However, the Editorial Board gives a fairly convincing argument–at least enough for good debate and comment.[read_more]
Yesterday, The Post’s View via the Editorial Board published an article titled, “Virginia’s GOP moves further away from democracy.”
THE FIX was in from the start when Virginia Republicans picked their ticket for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general in 2013.
Hard-line conservatives who control the state party apparatus decreed that the nominations would be determined not by primaries but by a convention, a mechanism well suited to limit the number of participants.
The statistics quoted are very revealing. I was there, in fact, I believe all of TBE editors and contributors were there. But, where was everyone else?
In the event, just 8,000 of the Republican faithful showed up — representing perhaps half of 1 percent of the party’s sympathizers in the state — and the right-wing ticket they picked was swept in the fall by the Democrats, who held much more widely attended nominating primaries.
While those statistics are sad but true, here is a more revealing and extremely disturbing FACT
The defeats were part of a GOP losing streak in Virginia’s statewide elections. Despite being evenly divided between the two major parties, Virginia has not elected a Republican to any statewide position since 2009, nor has it elected one to the U.S. Senate since 2002.
The Post’s assessment:
That string of losses has coincided with venomous internecine divisions in the Republican ranks, in which hard-liners generally have prevailed by forcing nominating conventions, most of which have yielded hard-line candidates. A notable exception was the GOP convention that nominated Ed Gillespie , a pragmatic candidate for the U.S. Senate last year; he was defeated by Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the incumbent, but narrowly.
And, moving forward:
Rather than rethinking that losing strategy, Virginia’s conservative activists now seem inclined to double down on it. They are pressing for the GOP to hold a convention rather than a state-run primary to choose a presidential nominee in 2016.
That move would be designed to favor more ideological candidates, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, and handicap more moderate candidates, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
In addition to giving more extreme candidates a leg up, the effect would be undemocratic. Tens of thousands of moderate Republicans — the sort of voters who might go to the polls for a primary but are unlikely to travel dozens or hundreds of miles to a convention — would be excluded.
Tens of millions of Americans might not be committed to one party or the other, but surely most would favor more participatory elections and more moderate candidates. By pressing for a process that would produce neither, hard-line Republicans are pursuing a losing strategy — not just for themselves but also for voters.
The question, whether you agree or not, seems to be, how do we change that FACT that Virginia has not elected a Republican to any statewide position since 2009, nor has it elected one to the U.S. Senate since 2002? Will doing the same thing, over and over, gain the same results? At end, it makes absolutely no difference who wins the primary–if they can’t win the general then coming close is not something Virginia republicans should be proud of, great effort or not.
Read the full editorial HERE.
26 comments
With today’s technology, the RPV could hold a multi-site convention, have many more participate, require the signed pledge, have the same registration process at several locations and the convention electronically connected through huge TV Screens. This would bring several times more “pledge signing Reublicans” into the convention nominating process. Until we register by political party and hold “Republican only” closed primaries, this multi-site convention could build our party, allow many more to participate without taking two days and hundreds of dollars out of their pockets, and make our nominations much more exciting. We would have conventions larger than the historic ones in 1978 (Obenshain- Warner) and 1992 (North-Miller).
The Post misses the point about excluding voters: it’s not a bug of the process, it’s a feature. Pro-convention advocates explicitly praise conventions for how few people participate. Some of us believe that’s a bad way to grow a party and win elections, but sadly “winning elections” isn’t the goal of many conservatives.
thread winner
Yes, and the crap you spread makes it even less likely people will vote for your candidates. If you like primaries so much, then get rid of open primaries or start holding them under the same law as general elections.
The Compost is always happy to advocate nomination processes for the Republican Party which allow non-Republicans to influence the outcome. They are mute when similar methods are used by the Communists, er, Democrats. Somehow Freedom of Association disappears in the editorial rooms of the Compost. For example, they have no problem with the House Black Caucaus excluding Republican members, but have a problem with Republicans nominating their own. Frankly, I don’t give a rats ass about the Compost’s opinion but wanted to horn in on the discussion. Any time Greg Letiecq has a comment it must matter!
The WashPo’s point is that conventions are an exclusionary process that A. sometimes nominates candidates without widespread appeal, and B. prevents republican leaning well wishers from feeling invested in the process. Va. Republicans could right their ship by simply utilizing an inclusive primary in 2016 . . .
It completely ignores all the other actions and players in the process that lead to statewide defeats in 2008, 2012, 2013, and 2014 (while ignoring electoral success in 2009). On TBE and other blogs post-mortems for 2013 identified over a dozen potentially viable reasons why the ticket lost. In 2014 Gillespie almost pulled it out against a seemingly untouchable sitting Senator.
The WashPo is avoiding its own culpability for its biased reporting especially in 2013 of poll numbers, and identifying an external boogeyman (conventions) it’s staff literally knows nothing about.
And 2012 was a primary…
So NO, the WashPo does not get it right. But the question was fair to ask.
Twice in one week the WashPo thinks it knows better than Va. Conservatives. First we are told the infighting needs to stop or we are doomed to the dust bin of history. That infighting is driven post-nomination by the moderate republicans.
Then we are told how to conduct our nominating process if we wish to ever win again.
The WashPo, like the government, thinks it knows better than us how to run our own lives. The WashPo, like the Federales, is not to be trusted.
then don’t bother to follow their advice. the point is this: Republicans are struggling. stop judging. start including. Our party should not be a church revival but a political party moving our candidates & our ideology forward in ways to win elections.
why would you want to exclude the church participants?
Their idealogy is the one that most matches the Republican Party’s idealogy.
Seems like you’d do better if you nominated a candidate that would appeal to and revive the hibernating churchers that have been reviled by the establishment nominees so far.
Never take your enemy’s advice on how to win anything.
Not totally on point, but I’ve wondered if it might help for the party to have a rule that 2-5% of all political donations to Virginia GOP candidates goes into the RPV treasury. It might help level the playing field between grassroots party members and big money donors.
Why does the post not make the same arguments about Democrats, who are just as likely to choose a convention as a nomination method. I haven’t seen any criticism of their “extreme” candidates. This is all the usual leftist propaganda.
I don’t think any worthwhile Republicans really give a rat’s *ss about WaPo’s opinion, given that it endorsed Buraq twice for his “moderate” ideology. The question of our party’s future and how we select candidates, however, is important.
When was the last time Democrats used a convention to nominate anyone other than a GA candidate? Probably not in my lifetime. That’s why the Post doesn’t mention it, it never happens.
They used a convention to pick a nominee in the 10th CD in 2014, for example.
Should have said when was the last time they used one for a contested race. John Foust didn’t have any opposition, so it was just a coronation.
The whole point of the exercise was to ensure Foust had no opposition. Despite knowing all that, the Post said nothing. But heaven help Conservatives if they even discuss the concept of a convention for the purpose of making it easier for people to run for office.
Not that I think the Post isn’t biased, but I can hardly recall more than a handful of times Democrats have even had contested nominations, let alone ones where conventions were used. There really is no point to the Post saying anything because they have no example of a recent Democratic convention to use. Last few contested races were the 8th district in 2014 and the 2006 US Senate, 2008 Presidential, 2009 and 2013 state wide contests. All of those were primaries.
I am assuming this is a rhetorical question.
Why are there no ‘hard line democrats’ or ‘hard line liberals’? The Post never uses those phrases.
The solution to the limited participation in conventions is simple. More slating. No one is entitled to be a delegate to a convention. They must be voted on by a larger body that delegates the responsibility to represent them at a convention. Conventions were always designed to have slates of delegates. People who are unable to attend a state convention show up at a local one to vote for people to represent them instead. We’ve totally moved away with that system with how we currently do conventions and that is the real issue.
Max — Do you think registering by party would help insure slating is representative of party members’ desires?
Sure it could or it could not. The way some people in the party are, they would be trying to exclude anyone who hasn’t been a registered Republican for X number of years.
Have we not had enough problems with ‘slating’ recently? No more slating, please.
The problems we’ve had with slating is because the Tea Party/Liberty faction of the party doesn’t think we should have conventions with delegates. They just want conventions with individuals representing themselves. You are called a delegate because you have had authority delegated to you by some larger group of people. When you automatically make everyone who files a delegate, you defeat the point of a convention. It should be a mass meeting with no weighted votes unless we are going to do slating.
We already have conventions with delegates; however, the problem lies in the people who are not whom they claim to be. The left has a very obvious footprint. Look at Obama sending monies (our tax dollars) to Israel to control the outcome of the upcoming election (One Voice); these monies are being used against Netanyahu’s reelection. The left pours illegals into districts around the country where conservatives are in the majority OR if there is a powerful representative (i.e. Trey Gowdy) whom they want to unseat. Do the research. Democrats go to extreme methods to taint established systems and control outcomes.