As any Montanan knows, while we may be cousins -- or even siblings -- our state and Wyoming are hardly political twins.
But the Montana Presidential caucus was structurally patterned on Wyoming's to a great extent, and as such, the results out of Wyoming are probably close to what we could expect in Montana. Romney won 8 delegates, Fred Thompson won 3, and Duncan Hunter 1.
The second and third place finishers would probably be different in Montana, since it would take a not-so-minor miracle to have Fred Thompson be in real contention on February 5. But then, since Montana's caucus is winner-take-all, it really doesn't matter much who comes in second.
As with Montana, Romney dominated the campaigning and organizing in Wyoming. Not that it was a lot, but some well-placed money spent early on goes a long ways in this kind of a contest where organization is everything and when the state is low in population.
We make this prediction of Montana following Wyoming, but to be accurate, it is really more of an "if the caucus were to be held today" type of prediction. And of course it isn't being held today -- it being held a month from now.
It is entirely possible that Mitt Romney could be defeated by John McCain in New Hampshire, by either Huckabee or McCain in Michigan, and by Huckabee (or by McCain if he is on a roll) in South Carolina. Romney will certainly lose Florida if he doesn't win New Hampshire and Michigan, and this would mean that he is 0 for 5 and essentially out of the running by the time February 5th rolls around.
At which point Montana Headlines would predict... well, that's a long ways down the line. We frankly have no idea who would win Montana if Romney is out of the picture -- much would depend on how the national race is shaping up, and who the last guys standing are at that point.
The Wyoming caucus seems to have given that state's GOP organization a boost, which is a good thing. It probably also will do the same here.
Interestingly, it really doesn't seem to have given the Romney campaign any kind of a boost at all on the national scene -- which makes one wonder whether campaigns in future years would be willing to invest even modest resources there.
Showing posts with label Wyoming GOP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wyoming GOP. Show all posts
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Saturday, January 5, 2008
GOP caucus in Wyoming gets national press
Carol over at Missoulopolis linked to a Wyoming Tribune-Eagle article that painted a dim picture of the Wyoming decision to go early with their caucus, thereby losing half of their delegates as a penalty.
In particular, the editors poked fun at Wyoming's supposed "inferiority complex" because the party wanted to get the thing over in time to make the New York Times deadline.
Let's just say that the GOP party leaders in Wyoming seem to be brighter than the editors at the Tribune-Eagle. Check this out.
The editors also mocked the GOP, saying that it didn't draw enough attention from presidential candidates to make it worth it.
According to the NYT article, Wyoming was indeed shortchanged: only 4 personal visits from Mitt Romney, with additional visits from Fred Thompson, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback.
Wow. Poor Wyoming.
By contrast, Montana, which played by the rules and didn't move up prior to February 5th (and which has twice the number of delegates that Wyoming does, after taking the penalty into account) hasn't had a single presidential candidate visit the state since our February 5th caucus was announced. Mitt Romney did address the Montana GOP state convention last summer, but the caucus was still in the planning phase at that point.
With half of the nation's delegates at stake on February 5th and little things like New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Florida also coming over the next month -- well, don't expect any presidential candidate who is truly in contention to visit Montana before our caucus. (Although there are rumors.)
This is not to say that our early caucus has not been a success. Quite the contrary -- precinct positions are being rapidly filled all across the state, building up the grassroots organization of the state Republican Party and bringing new people and fresh blood into the party organization.
This was always one of the main goals of the early caucus in Montana, since presidential politics generates emotion and buzz, even if the candidates themselves don't come to the state.
According to the NYT article, Wyoming has likewise had a grassroots boost from their early caucus.
The Tribune-Eagle editors can be as condescending as they like. Somehow we doubt that the Wyoming GOP leaders sat around a conference table wondering how they could best do things to please newspaper editorial boards in Cheyenne.
They were probably thinking about the Republican Party's best interests in Wyoming. Which is what they are supposed to do.
In particular, the editors poked fun at Wyoming's supposed "inferiority complex" because the party wanted to get the thing over in time to make the New York Times deadline.
Let's just say that the GOP party leaders in Wyoming seem to be brighter than the editors at the Tribune-Eagle. Check this out.
The editors also mocked the GOP, saying that it didn't draw enough attention from presidential candidates to make it worth it.
According to the NYT article, Wyoming was indeed shortchanged: only 4 personal visits from Mitt Romney, with additional visits from Fred Thompson, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, and Sam Brownback.
Wow. Poor Wyoming.
By contrast, Montana, which played by the rules and didn't move up prior to February 5th (and which has twice the number of delegates that Wyoming does, after taking the penalty into account) hasn't had a single presidential candidate visit the state since our February 5th caucus was announced. Mitt Romney did address the Montana GOP state convention last summer, but the caucus was still in the planning phase at that point.
With half of the nation's delegates at stake on February 5th and little things like New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, and Florida also coming over the next month -- well, don't expect any presidential candidate who is truly in contention to visit Montana before our caucus. (Although there are rumors.)
This is not to say that our early caucus has not been a success. Quite the contrary -- precinct positions are being rapidly filled all across the state, building up the grassroots organization of the state Republican Party and bringing new people and fresh blood into the party organization.
This was always one of the main goals of the early caucus in Montana, since presidential politics generates emotion and buzz, even if the candidates themselves don't come to the state.
According to the NYT article, Wyoming has likewise had a grassroots boost from their early caucus.
The Tribune-Eagle editors can be as condescending as they like. Somehow we doubt that the Wyoming GOP leaders sat around a conference table wondering how they could best do things to please newspaper editorial boards in Cheyenne.
They were probably thinking about the Republican Party's best interests in Wyoming. Which is what they are supposed to do.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wyoming's move to the front of the line -- the "Delaware Plan" at stake, a slap at Karl Rove, and a footnote on Montana's GOP caucuses...
While the decision by Montana's GOP to move our party's delegate selection up to February by holding limited party caucuses has received a lot of attention in Montana, less has been said about the particularly bold move by Wyoming's GOP to move a part of its delegate selecting process to January 5.
That's right -- even before Iowa and New Hampshire. And this is not a "straw poll" or a "beauty contest," but real delegate selection.
The Wyoming delegate selection process is more traditional than it is in Montana. Some of the delegates are selected at county conventions, and the rest at the statewide convention. This is true both for both parties.
The current Wyoming plan is to leapfrog its county conventions to January 5th where 12 delegates will be selected, and then select the rest of the delegates at the May 30th state convention in Rock Springs.
Both national parties are struggling to get a handle on the aggressive posturing by states -- all of whom want to be first or nearly first, thus having a disproportionate impact on the selection process.
The GOP has been the more lenient, saying that states will be penalized half of their delegates for breaking the barriers set by the national party. The Democratic party has drawn a harder line, saying that all of a state's delegates will be disqualified for breaking party rules.
Jay Cost over at the HorseRaceBlog at RealClearPolitics has been detailing the implications of the more dramatic showdown between Florida and the DNC. He makes a compelling case that it is important for the national parties to maintain control of their own delegate selection processes. He maintains that strong political parties make the selection of a president more democratic, not less.
He seems to believe that a process guided by national parties produces better nominees for the entire country than will a free-for-all of individual states that are just out for their own interests. And again, his case is a compelling one, and the entire series of posts is worth reading.
Cost is clearly cheering on Howard Dean, hoping that he will have the strength to hold the line. He feels (correctly, in our view) that Dean is one of the few major politicos in the national party organizations who understands the long view and the importance of having strong, responsible national parties.
Looking at the success of Dean's determination to pursue a 50 state strategy for the Democratic party -- against all odds and punditry -- it is hard not to be persuaded that while Dean would have made a terrible president, he is one of the best national party chairmen in recent memory, for either party.
On the other hand, the GOP gets low marks for its tepid response of withholding only half of a state's delegates, which Cost feels is not enough of a deterrent to keep states in line. The GOP avoids the accusations of "disenfranchisement" that Floridians are lobbing at the Democratic party (Cost makes short work of that silly argument,) but it stands to lose even more control of its own nominating process.
For what states want is not their fair share of the delegates. What they want is more than their fair share of influence, and as Iowa and NH have proven for decades, the number of delegates does not equal influence.
But back to Wyoming. It appears that more is at play in Wyoming's move to January 5th than meets the eye, and appropriately enough (given the recent hoopla surrounding his resignation,) the memory of Karl Rove is at the center of it. (Read the whole article by Marie Horrigan over at CQPolitics)
Tom Sansonetti, a former Wyoming Republican Party chairman, led the last comprehensive effort in either major national party to bring order to the nominating process. The Republican National Committee (RNC) task force that he led produced what was called the Delaware Plan, which would have divvied states up into four groups that would hold nominating contests spread out from March through June.
But the plan “got shot down at the convention in Philadelphia because Karl Rove didn’t want a floor fight to be on national television on the first Monday of the Philadelphia convention,” Sansonetti said.
“It had nothing to do with the merits of the Delaware Plan,” he continued. “It was just that the convention was scripted, and there was no room for a three-hour floor fight on whether or not the Delaware Plan should be adopted or whether the party was going to stay with its present system.”
National party conventions scripted? Say it isn't so!
Anyway, Sansonetti has led what amounts to a guerrilla campaign to force the GOP to consider major reforms in its nominating process. By skipping Wyoming to the front of the line (a pretty easy and inexpensive process in Wyoming, with its convention format -- a process that can be pushed forward indefinitely with ease,) he and others from Wyoming are not just trying to get more influence for Wyoming:
Wyoming’s move is aimed at sending a message to national party officials that the process is out of control and needs to be fixed. The RNC’s setting of Feb. 5 as the first date for most states to hold their nominating contests spurred nearly 20 states to pile their primaries and caucuses onto that early Tuesday.
Sansonetti was one of the architects of the so-called "Delaware plan," which really is the best alternative plan that has yet been proposed. Some have advocated regional primaries, but the problem with that is that the large states in each region would dominate -- and large states means campaigns pretty much exclusively waged with big media buys in major markets. In other words, a straight-forward money game.
The “Delaware Plan” would have divided the 50 states into four groups by size and given each group a monthlong period during which they could hold their caucuses or primaries.
The smallest 13 states would be given March, the next 13 states would be given April, the medium states would be given May and the largest states would be given June.
The fourth group of largest states would constitute 52 percent of the nominating votes, ensuring that presidential candidates had to campaign in all the states and the nomination would remain in play through June.
If Wyoming's move to the front of the line (January 5th was chosen because it is even in front of the earliest date being considered by New Hampshire as a back-up plan if the other states start to move their primaries) drives the GOP to consider the Delaware plan or a similar sensible reform, we will be grateful for their temerity.
Much of this comes down to how one views political parties -- or at least political parties as they should be, and can be. Edmund Burke was one of the first to make the argument for the importance of what he called "responsible party," and the critical role that it plays in good government and stable politics.
Montana's GOP has taken a lot of flack for its recent changes to the presidential delegate selection process. It remains to be seen whether the changes will produce the desired effect of simultaneously strengthening the grass-roots party organization and returning some semblence of relevance to Montana's delegate selection process.
Much of this will depend on how seriously those allowed to caucus take their responsibilities. They will need to talk to people in their precincts, have listening sessions, and have their votes reflect the sense of the party.
If it ends up that the caucus move is part of a setup by one candidate's supporters to give him a little extra early boost, it will be a very bad thing, especially if simultaneous polling shows that there is no correlation between caucus results and the preferences of likely primary voters.
And the Montana GOP should persuade independent polling organizations to conduct simultaneous polls of Montana Republicans, as part of the learning process of how to do caucuses -- with an eye toward expanding them to all registered Republicans in the next cycle.
Chancy? Yes. But what better time than now for Montana's party leaders to sweat a little about how much they are in touch with their party members? We want strong parties -- but strong organization and leadership is only a part of that. Being connected with the grassroots is an even bigger part. With all due respect to those who view the Montana caucuses as a disenfranchisement, such caucuses actually have the potential to force party leadership to connect with party members far more than would a June primary.
That's right -- even before Iowa and New Hampshire. And this is not a "straw poll" or a "beauty contest," but real delegate selection.
The Wyoming delegate selection process is more traditional than it is in Montana. Some of the delegates are selected at county conventions, and the rest at the statewide convention. This is true both for both parties.
The current Wyoming plan is to leapfrog its county conventions to January 5th where 12 delegates will be selected, and then select the rest of the delegates at the May 30th state convention in Rock Springs.
Both national parties are struggling to get a handle on the aggressive posturing by states -- all of whom want to be first or nearly first, thus having a disproportionate impact on the selection process.
The GOP has been the more lenient, saying that states will be penalized half of their delegates for breaking the barriers set by the national party. The Democratic party has drawn a harder line, saying that all of a state's delegates will be disqualified for breaking party rules.
Jay Cost over at the HorseRaceBlog at RealClearPolitics has been detailing the implications of the more dramatic showdown between Florida and the DNC. He makes a compelling case that it is important for the national parties to maintain control of their own delegate selection processes. He maintains that strong political parties make the selection of a president more democratic, not less.
He seems to believe that a process guided by national parties produces better nominees for the entire country than will a free-for-all of individual states that are just out for their own interests. And again, his case is a compelling one, and the entire series of posts is worth reading.
Cost is clearly cheering on Howard Dean, hoping that he will have the strength to hold the line. He feels (correctly, in our view) that Dean is one of the few major politicos in the national party organizations who understands the long view and the importance of having strong, responsible national parties.
Looking at the success of Dean's determination to pursue a 50 state strategy for the Democratic party -- against all odds and punditry -- it is hard not to be persuaded that while Dean would have made a terrible president, he is one of the best national party chairmen in recent memory, for either party.
On the other hand, the GOP gets low marks for its tepid response of withholding only half of a state's delegates, which Cost feels is not enough of a deterrent to keep states in line. The GOP avoids the accusations of "disenfranchisement" that Floridians are lobbing at the Democratic party (Cost makes short work of that silly argument,) but it stands to lose even more control of its own nominating process.
For what states want is not their fair share of the delegates. What they want is more than their fair share of influence, and as Iowa and NH have proven for decades, the number of delegates does not equal influence.
But back to Wyoming. It appears that more is at play in Wyoming's move to January 5th than meets the eye, and appropriately enough (given the recent hoopla surrounding his resignation,) the memory of Karl Rove is at the center of it. (Read the whole article by Marie Horrigan over at CQPolitics)
Tom Sansonetti, a former Wyoming Republican Party chairman, led the last comprehensive effort in either major national party to bring order to the nominating process. The Republican National Committee (RNC) task force that he led produced what was called the Delaware Plan, which would have divvied states up into four groups that would hold nominating contests spread out from March through June.
But the plan “got shot down at the convention in Philadelphia because Karl Rove didn’t want a floor fight to be on national television on the first Monday of the Philadelphia convention,” Sansonetti said.
“It had nothing to do with the merits of the Delaware Plan,” he continued. “It was just that the convention was scripted, and there was no room for a three-hour floor fight on whether or not the Delaware Plan should be adopted or whether the party was going to stay with its present system.”
National party conventions scripted? Say it isn't so!
Anyway, Sansonetti has led what amounts to a guerrilla campaign to force the GOP to consider major reforms in its nominating process. By skipping Wyoming to the front of the line (a pretty easy and inexpensive process in Wyoming, with its convention format -- a process that can be pushed forward indefinitely with ease,) he and others from Wyoming are not just trying to get more influence for Wyoming:
Wyoming’s move is aimed at sending a message to national party officials that the process is out of control and needs to be fixed. The RNC’s setting of Feb. 5 as the first date for most states to hold their nominating contests spurred nearly 20 states to pile their primaries and caucuses onto that early Tuesday.
Sansonetti was one of the architects of the so-called "Delaware plan," which really is the best alternative plan that has yet been proposed. Some have advocated regional primaries, but the problem with that is that the large states in each region would dominate -- and large states means campaigns pretty much exclusively waged with big media buys in major markets. In other words, a straight-forward money game.
The “Delaware Plan” would have divided the 50 states into four groups by size and given each group a monthlong period during which they could hold their caucuses or primaries.
The smallest 13 states would be given March, the next 13 states would be given April, the medium states would be given May and the largest states would be given June.
The fourth group of largest states would constitute 52 percent of the nominating votes, ensuring that presidential candidates had to campaign in all the states and the nomination would remain in play through June.
If Wyoming's move to the front of the line (January 5th was chosen because it is even in front of the earliest date being considered by New Hampshire as a back-up plan if the other states start to move their primaries) drives the GOP to consider the Delaware plan or a similar sensible reform, we will be grateful for their temerity.
Much of this comes down to how one views political parties -- or at least political parties as they should be, and can be. Edmund Burke was one of the first to make the argument for the importance of what he called "responsible party," and the critical role that it plays in good government and stable politics.
Montana's GOP has taken a lot of flack for its recent changes to the presidential delegate selection process. It remains to be seen whether the changes will produce the desired effect of simultaneously strengthening the grass-roots party organization and returning some semblence of relevance to Montana's delegate selection process.
Much of this will depend on how seriously those allowed to caucus take their responsibilities. They will need to talk to people in their precincts, have listening sessions, and have their votes reflect the sense of the party.
If it ends up that the caucus move is part of a setup by one candidate's supporters to give him a little extra early boost, it will be a very bad thing, especially if simultaneous polling shows that there is no correlation between caucus results and the preferences of likely primary voters.
And the Montana GOP should persuade independent polling organizations to conduct simultaneous polls of Montana Republicans, as part of the learning process of how to do caucuses -- with an eye toward expanding them to all registered Republicans in the next cycle.
Chancy? Yes. But what better time than now for Montana's party leaders to sweat a little about how much they are in touch with their party members? We want strong parties -- but strong organization and leadership is only a part of that. Being connected with the grassroots is an even bigger part. With all due respect to those who view the Montana caucuses as a disenfranchisement, such caucuses actually have the potential to force party leadership to connect with party members far more than would a June primary.
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