GOP Temporary Delegate Selection Committee in Place

Here's the press release:

RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENTS TO TEMPORARY DELEGATE SELECTION COMMITTEE

WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele today announced the appointment of Ohio National Committeeman Bob Bennett, Wisconsin National Committeeman Steve King, Florida National Committeeman Paul Senft, former Maryland Secretary of State Mary Kane, former Michigan Republican Party Chairman Saul Anuzis, former Office of Personnel Management Director Kay James, former Iowa Republican Party Chairman Brian Kennedy, former White House Spanish media spokesperson Mercy Schlapp, and former New Hampshire Attorney General Tom Rath to the RNC Temporary Delegate Selection Committee.

“I am proud to announce the appointments of this impressive group of people to the RNC Temporary Delegate Selection Committee. They are all exceptionally qualified people and I look forward to working with them in the future,” said Chairman Steele.

The RNC Temporary Delegate Selection Committee serves to review the timing of the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegate and alternate delegates to the Republican National Convention. In accordance with The Rules of the Republican Party, the RNC Chairman appoints three RNC members and six non-members to the RNC Temporary Delegate Selection Committee, which is already comprised of four elected RNC members.

Notes:
1) Was the GOP trying to keep this quiet? By releasing this on a Friday -- the Friday before a holiday weekend no less -- this news was bound to receive less coverage than if it had been broken on almost any other day. That certainly seems to have been the case. The Democratic Change Commission's announcement garnered more coverage than its Republican counterpart. Granted, I'm on the road and wasn't as on top of things today as I usually am, but still, I had to search for mentions of this announcement. Color me perplexed.

2) Take a look at the new members of the committee. All nine are from blue states. Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Iowa, Florida, Michigan and Maryland are all represented as are Virginia (Kay James) and Florida again (Mercy Schlapp). Most importantly -- to them at least -- Iowa and New Hampshire have a seat at the table, but so do upstarts Florida and Michigan. Ohio GOP chair, Bob Bennett has been pushing the Ohio Plan for a while now (see here for more). But where are Texas and South Carolina, or for that matter, any southern state? This provides at least some indication of the direction Michael Steele will take the party. It is a nod to the need to expand the party outside of the South. But to have no southern states represented? That's certainly a break from the past.

The full committee is due to issue a report with recommendations on the rules of the 2012 primary season next summer and FHQ will have an eye on the progress between now and then.


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More 2012 Polling: Huckabee's Still Tops Against Obama but No One Does Well

Public Policy Polling has another set of 2012 presidential trial heat polls out and what stands out this month is that Obama has stretched his leads over all four Republicans polled. Mike Huckabee still fares the best, but none of the four prospective candidates even clears 40%. There's not really much to add, but here are the numbers and the real attraction is that I've added a visual to accompany the numbers. Now that we have multiple polls we can track the trend(s). That doesn't mean much with two polls -- it's just a couple of contour-less lines -- but Obama-Palin was polled in March as well, so we have three polls for that match-up. [Links to past PPP polls are under the May numbers.]

Obama: 56% Palin: 37%

4/23/09
3/18/09

Obama: 53% Romney: 35%

4/23/09

Obama: 52% Huckabee: 39%

4/23/09

Obama: 53% Gingrich: 36%

4/23/09

Notes:
1) As I mentioned in the Palin post the other day -- and as Jack reiterated -- Palin is purported to be a grassroots candidate, but her support in the polls seems to be dropping off. Political insiders v. the masses? Maybe not. It could be insiders/masses v. Palin supporters. Of course, the Alaska governor drew more support than the candidate FHQ has tabbed as the favorite for the GOP nomination [but what do I know?].

2) Is Romney doing worse with Huntsman out of the race? Sure, that's a coincidence, but the drop off isn't anything to sneeze at. And with the debate shifting in recent days to foreign policy (Gitmo in particular), Romney, the economy candidate, is pushed further out of the picture.

3) It is early, early, early, but it is still nice to have some data to look at.


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Here's the Problem for Palin in a Nutshell

Down and Out in Minnesota

The 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar (5/20/09)

For the most up-to-date version of this calendar see the left sidebar under the 2012 electoral college projection or click here.

With Hawaii Republicans settling on the caucus system and a date for its 2012 delegate selection event, it is time once again for an update of the 2012 Presidential Primary Calendar. Here again are the rules from the last update:

1. Caucus states are italicized while primary states are not.
2. States that have changed dates appear twice (or more) on the calendar; once by the old date and once by the new date. The old date will be struck through while the new date will be color-coded with the amount of movement (in days) in parentheses. States in green are states that have moved to earlier dates on the calendar and states in red are those that have moved to later dates. Arkansas, for example, has moved its 2012 primary and moved it back 104 days.
   
3. You'll also see that some of the states on the calendar are live links. These are links to active legislation that would shift the date on which that state's presidential primary would be held in 2012. That allows us to track the status of the legislation more easily (in the states that allow you to link directly to the bill status).
4. For the sake of tracking relevant legislation dealing with presidential primaries generally, but not the dates directly (ie: Minnesota potentially switching from caucus to primary), FHQ will include links in parentheses next to such states (H for House action, S for Senate action).
   

New Additions: Hawaii Republican caucuses

2012 Presidential Primary Calendar

Monday, January 16, 2012: Iowa caucuses*

Tuesday, January 24: New Hampshire*

Saturday, January 28: Nevada caucuses*, South Carolina*

A note on the placement of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Tuesday, January 31: Florida

Tuesday, February 7 (Super Tuesday): Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois (H / S), Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma (H), Tennessee and Utah

Saturday, February 11: Louisiana

Tuesday, February 14: Maryland, Virginia

Tuesday, February 21: Hawaii Republican caucuses (+87), Wisconsin

Tuesday, February 28: Arizona**, Michigan***

Tuesday, March 6: Massachusetts***, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont

Tuesday, March 13: Mississippi

Tuesday, March 20: Colorado caucuses****

Tuesday, April 24: Pennsylvania

Tuesday, May 8: Indiana, North Carolina and West Virginia

Tuesday, May 15: Nebraska, Oregon

Tuesday, May 22: Arkansas (-104), Idaho, Kentucky

Tuesday, June 5: Montana, New Mexico***** and South Dakota

*New Hampshire law calls for the Granite state to hold a primary on the second Tuesday of March or seven days prior to any other similar election, whichever is earlier. Florida is first now, so New Hampshire would be a week earlier at the latest. Traditionally, Iowa has gone on the Monday a week prior to New Hampshire. For the time being we'll wedge Nevada and South Carolina in on the Saturday between New Hampshire and Florida, but these are just guesses at the moment. Any rogue states could cause a shift.

**In Arizona the governor can use his or her proclamation powers to move the state's primary to a date on which the event would have an impact on the nomination. In 2004 and 2008 the primary was moved to the first Tuesday in February.

***Massachusetts and Michigan are the only states that passed a frontloading bill prior to 2008 that was not permanent. The Bay state reverts to its first Tuesday in March date in 2012 while Michigan will fall back to the fourth Tuesday in February.

****The Colorado Democratic and Republican parties have the option to move their caucuses from the third Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in February.

*****The law in New Mexico allows the parties to decide when to hold their nominating contests. The Democrats have gone in early February in the last two cycles, but the GOP has held steady in June. They have the option of moving however.

A note on the Minnesota caucuses.

Notes:
1) The Hawaii Republicans' move from a May convention to a February caucus shifts it into a concurrent delegate selection event with island Democrats but also makes it the first frontloading state of the 2012 cycle. Often the convention system and caucus system are one and the same, but in this instance I think Hawaii is shifting the actual delegate allocation to an earlier date. In the past Hawaii Republicans have held precinct meetings as early as January (see here, here, here, here, and here), but that likely did not have a direct effect on convention delegate allocation. What we'll likely see from Hawaii -- barring any further changes -- is something akin to what Wyoming Republicans did in 2008. Wyoming allowed for approximately half of their delegates be allocated based on the results of the first step precinct caucuses and the remainder to be divvied out at the final step convention. I would assume that this will be the case in Hawaii as well. Otherwise, the frontloading move isn't all that big a deal considering the fact that Hawaii Republicans have technically had January contests five primary seasons since 1976.

2) The number of days Hawaii moved (87 days) is based on the assumption that Republicans in the Aloha state would have held -- and still might hold -- their convention during the third weekend in May in 2012.

3) Finally, because Florida, Indiana, Minnesota and North Carolina are officially off the list of potential movers as of now, the links for their legislation will be removed from the calendar. I will keep them live in the past versions -- all of which I'll append to the sidebar primary calendar like I used to with the electoral college maps. And why does Georgia's legislation keep its link when the General Assembly has adjourned? That legislation will carry over to 2010, so we'll consider that "active" legislation to change the date of the Peach state's presidential primary.


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Insiders vs. Masses

The Political Insiders Poll that the National Journal has done is enlightening. The most interesting bit asks partisans to name the current governors within their parties with the brightest futures. Check out the poll link above for the full details, but for our purposes, allow me to focus solely on the Republican side. That's where the action is anyway.

Here's the list of those drawing support (based on this question) from 99 GOP insiders ranked from most to least:
Jindal
Barbour
Pawlenty
Crist
Sanford
Huntsman
Daniels
Palin
No one
Schwarenegger

This isn't the greatest of news for Sarah Palin. Seven other current Republican governors top the former vice presidential candidate and the Alaska governor surpasses only the Governator and no one on the list not to mention the 13 other Republican governors. Still, out of 99 votes, Palin managed to garner only 5 votes. That's a pretty low number for a former vice presidential candidate.

...in the year immediately following the presidential election where said person was on the ticket.

But here's the rub: This poll was conducted among political insiders, not at the mass level where her support would be expected to be highest. Now, we could look at the Google Trends data where Palin is doing well relative to other potential candidates, but I don't know that the information we have there jibes well with the scant polling on 2012. Palin has actually polled quite low in those surveys which could suggest that the frequency of Google searches for her are propped up by the types of folks who like to gawk at car accidents -- accidents like the Levi Johnston dust-up.

This does have implications for the presidential primaries in 2012 if Palin decides to throw her hat in the ring. As we've mentioned here before, if anyone is likely buck party insiders in the primaries with support from the rank-and-file members of the GOP electorate, Sarah Palin is that candidate. The bad part for her though is that that sort of thing only rarely happens in Republican nomination races, but more often across the aisle. In other words, the elites are driving the results more in the GOP than among the Democrats. [Some may argue with that though.]

File this one away, though. If Palin enters the race, the tension between these two camps will decide how well she does.

Hat tip: Daily Kos


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Down and Out in Minnesota

Nothing like a slow death in committee.

Monday came and went and as the clock struck midnight, the Minnesota legislature adjourned for the year. While a bill to shift the state's general primary from September to August passed (and awaits Governor Pawlenty's signature), both HF 31 and SF 157 were left languishing in committee, postponing for at least a year the decision to make the switch from a caucus system to a primary.

The House bill hadn't budged since being introduced in mid-January. On the other hand, the Senate version made it out of the State and Local Government Operation and Oversight Committee with a "Do Pass" authorization, but got held up once it was re-referred to the Finance Committee. [I suppose there comes a time when you actually have to consider paying for these things.] But neither ultimately made it through and the Land of 10,000 Lakes will have to wait to make the switch from caucus to primary for at least another year. And it is likely that any future bill's success will depend in large measure on how well the state is doing economically.

In the meantime, though, mark another state off the list of potential 2012 movers.

...for now.


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Hawaii Republicans Adopt Caucus System, Set Date for 2012

Over the weekend, Hawaii Republicans at their annual convention voted down the convention system they have used for allocating Republican presidential nomination delegates in favor of a caucus system. In the process, Aloha state Republicans scheduled the 2012 caucuses for third Tuesday in February. That would bring the contest in line with where Hawaii Democrats held their caucuses during the 2004 and 2008 cycles.

Now, this is a tentative date at this point. There were two proposals that could have been on the table at the state convention. The caucus plan obviously, but there was also a plan for a closed primary that passed the county convention stage but was withheld by the Rules Committee for the Hawaii GOP. The latter plan may come up at a convention in the future and change the date of the GOP's delegate selection event in the Aloha state. However, we can pencil the Hawaii GOP caucuses in for February 21, 2012 until such a time.

This move makes Hawaii the first state to frontload a presidential nomination contest for 2012. And it is funny: Arkansas and Hawaii, for all intents and purposes, switched places on the calendar. Arkansas moved from February to May and Hawaii's GOP shifted from May to February.

NOTE: 2012 Primary Calendar update coming later in the day.


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When Did Primary Become a Verb?

Is it just me or is anyone else bothered by this recent bit of vernacular short-handery? For example, Merrick Alpert to Primary Senator Christopher Dodd. Is it that hard to say, "Merrick Alpert to Challenge Senator Christopher Dodd in a Primary?" Or better yet, "Merrick Alpert to Challenge Sen. Chris Dodd in a Primary?" I mean, there are two examples of already established short-hand. And why is the use of the verb primary confined to this particular race? [I've seen it used elsewhere, too.] It all just seems as silly as the Republicans calling the Democratic Party the Democrat Party or the Democrats childishly responding by calling the GOP the Republic Party.

Of course, what should not be lost in this curmudgeonly rant is that Chris Dodd is being challenged in next year's Connecticut senate primary by a former aide of Al Gore's.

Hat tip: Political Wire [See, they got it right. "Dodd Draws Primary Challenge." Oh fine, rant over.]


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2012 GOP Candidate Emergence Tracker

The new, embeddable Google Trends Gadget will come in handy I think. I'll still put together the monthly posts (Where is that April one again?), but this gives everyone the chance for one-stop, do-it-yourself searching on the possible contenders for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

The plusses are obvious, but let's talk a bit about the minuses with the gadget.

• First, just like the Google Trends application, you are limited to just five search terms. When we're talking about 8 or 10 or 12 possible candidates, though, you've got a problem. Fortunately, there's a something of a work-around. Don't like Tim Pawlenty occupying that fifth spot? Fine, click "edit" in the upper right corner of the figure and substitute Bobby Jindal or Kay Bailey Hutchinson or John Huntsman [oops] Thune/Ensign. This is where the monthly aggregations of this data will be helpful: putting everyone -- all 10 or 12 candidates -- side by side.
• I would also like to have this thing up and refreshing in the sidebar in real time, but the parameters of the gadget make it too large to fit there. My attempts to resize it only altered the frame size, not the graph itself. The smaller I made it, the more the frame zoomed in on the upper left corner. The proper dimensions for the sidebar left me with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich's names and a couple of Sarah Palin's peaks from the line graph. Not an ideal visual representation. What I'll do then is similar to what I've already done with the primary calendar maps in the left sidebar. I'll put one of the graph pictures in its own sidebar widget and make the picture a live link to this post/gadget so you can have an updated look. I'll also periodically update the picture (weekly?), so that it doesn't stagnate.

I think that's it. Happy candidate tracking.


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North Carolina Won't Be Frontloading for 2012 During 2009

Earlier this week FHQ examined the current state of 2012 frontloading in the context of the 2009 state legislative sessions. The idea there was that time is running out on state legislatures with bills proposing the movement of presidential primaries. The logic was that many legislatures are nearing the completion of their sessions, but that fails to recognize state-specific rules of legislative process. Sure, states technically have until the close of the session to act, but in North Carolina the General Assembly requires that bills make it out of their originating chamber prior to a certain date. In 2009, that date was this past Thursday, May 14. And S150, the bill that would move the Old North state's presidential primary from the Tuesday after the first Monday in May to the first Tuesday in February, was successfully bottled up in committee just as it was two years ago when a very similar piece of legislation met the same fate. Again, the circumstances are nearly identical. A Democratic committee chair on the Elections Committee in the North Carolina Senate blocks a Republican-spearheaded proposal to move the state's presidential primary. Of course, Democrats are even less motivated now versus two years ago to move the primary since its only benefits would be enjoyed by Republicans with a competitive primary.

North Carolina, then, joins Florida and Georgia as states where proposed frontloading bills were allowed to lapse in committee (though Georgia's will be carried over to the 2010 session).

Hat tip: Ballot Access News


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Who Had May 15 in the Office Pool for Jon Huntsman Joining the Obama Administration?

I didn't.

Dark horse, schmark horse. 2012 now likely seems out for the now former-Utah governor. Consider me as surprised as everyone else by the move from Beehive state governor to ambassador to China. Reactions have run the gamut from...

good for Charlie Crist to...

if you can't beat Obama, join him and from...

Huntsman in 2016 to...

Huntsman in 2016 (James, posting over at RedState, is a former student of mine, so I have to get that link in there.).

Here's the thing on Huntsman: This is a shrewd political move.

• It augments his executive experience and enhances his foreign policy credentials (He has already served as ambassador to Singapore in the Bush 41 administration and took an LDS mission trip to Taiwan.).
• By working with Obama, it shows Huntsman's capacity to operate in a bipartisan way.
• He avoids the two Mormons is better than one problem, he would have faced if he and Mitt Romney were to enter the fray in 2011 or so. Michael Steele seems to think this is an issue.
• And finally, and this can't be understated, it allows the soul-searching within the Republican Party to more fully develop. More negatively, that soul-searching could be spun as infighting, but I'll stick with the more positive angle. 2012 may yet be a good year for the GOP, but through the current lens that is difficult to see. 2016, an open seat and chance for Obama/Democratic Party fatigue looks a lot better electorally.
  

But one thing's likely for sure: we can probably take Huntsman out of the 2012 candidate emergence data. I like having ten candidates being considered, so who should replace Huntsman (who FHQ had a soft spot for, I might add.)? If I had to choose, I think I'd opt for John Thune. Thoughts? Comments? You know what to do.


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