Rank and File Passion vs. Establishment Support: Cain vs. Pawlenty

Like everyone following these sorts of things, FHQ, too, saw the Gallup numbers on the 2012 Republican nomination yesterday. Sadly, we've been so caught up in the weeds of the formation of the 2012 presidential primary calendar that we've nary had time to examine some if any of the polling that has come out recently -- much less for 2011. Our usual line on this polling is that we like the information, but we're hard-pressed to see a way in which it matters very much relative to the outcome of the nomination (or the general election for that matter). But I, like Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight, was drawn more toward the Herman Cain's standing than the much-ballyhooed Palin numbers. But Silver's post and an earlier Jonathan Bernstein post on Palin kept knocking around in my head.

Look, the party decides these things -- more often than not. At the very least, the party filters the decision before it gets to the rank and file members voting in presidential primaries and caucuses. We are at the point in this cycle where we are beginning to get a feel for this among other things. Once again, we are learning that there are passionate voices out there; passionate voices among some faction of the rank and file that are lining up behind various candidates. But as Bernstein points out, the winner of either party's nomination is not a factional candidate, but one who can build a coalition. And this in a nutshell is the party establishment versus the mass public withint that party. The former is interested in the coalition builder with the general election in mind while the latter can be or is primarily focused on someone who reflects them. Sometimes those interests overlap (see Bush 2000), but sometimes they do not (see McCain 2008).

2012 is shaping up more like 2008 than 2000 from the vantage point of May 2011. In other words, there are competing interests between the party elite and the rank and file. And given the discontent with the idea of Romney as a frontrunner within some Republican circles, the argument could be made that there are competing interests within the Republican Party establishment as well.

That said, FHQ is partial to the Romney and anti-Romney narrative that has been making the rounds these last few months; that the race for the Republican nomination will come down to Romney and someone else. But I don't think that's Herman Cain. I'm more apt to side with Tim Pawlenty despite the fact that Cain edge the former Minnesota governor out in this latest Gallup poll.

Why?

Passion vs. Establishment.

Herman Cain has something of a passionate following, but Pawlenty has a higher ceiling in terms of attaining the status of anti-Romney and better yet, coalition builder. How can we best assess this, though? Nothing, and I mean nothing, picks up on hollow passion behind a candidacy better than Google Trends. And if you follow the isolated 2007 search trends of the top GOP candidates for the 2008 nomination, you'll see that an argument can be made that the tool also picks up on hollow poll leaders as well (see that Giuliani line -- in green). What do we really see in those numbers? Well, you see McCain trail off across 2007, Fred Thompson searches spike over the summer, and Huckabee and Romney gaining as Iowa approaches. If you look closely enough you'll also see McCain on the rise right before the new year, but also Ron Paul searches rocketing upward.

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Rick Perry could be the new Fred Thompson, but I think Herman Cain finds some territory somewhere between what Thompson was and that passionate Ron Paul faction. In between, mind you, but closer to Paul. The search trends thus far kind of bear this out. The establishment, coalition-building candidates are laying low while the passion builds behind factional candidates. If you look at the trends graphic above you can see that Romney and Pawlenty are in that low-lying area while candidates like Cain and Paul and even the uproar around Gingrich finds much bigger swings -- much bigger spikes. Yes, Pawlenty got something out of his announcement on Monday and if you back the trendline up, Romney's exploratory committee announcement elicited a similar bump for the former Massachusetts governor. But note that both are more modest than the factional candidate jumps (and their average position overall).

No, this isn't a definitive examination on the state of the race for the Republican nomination, but it does give us a glimpse into the position of these two types of candidates and a comparison to 2008. Does Cain have a chance? Sure. That case is easier to make than the case that he has absolutely zero chance of winning. But Cain is nothing more than a factional candidate, and even if you argue that he isn't, he is not as solid a coalition-building candidate as some of the alternatives; namely Pawlenty.

NOTE: Incidentally, if you want to mess around with the various five candidate combinations on the 2012 GOP Candidate Emergence Tracker, you can do so here. Just click on "edit" in blue and change the search parameters. [Yes, Mitch Daniels will be removed as a default option soon enough. Also, I can't wait to see what kind of bump Palin gets out of this bus tour announcement.]

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Ohio Senate and House at Odds Over Presidential Primary Date

FHQ glossed over this earlier in the week, but I didn't want to let the week end without mentioning that the Ohio Senate passed its version of the elections overhaul. On Tuesday, the Ohio Senate passed SB 148, but unlike the House version, the Senate's bill does not include a provision moving the presidential primary from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in May. Each chamber's bill is now in the opposite house for consideration, and the discrepancies between the bills will have to be ironed out in one version or in a conference committee later on.

Time is not a pressing issue in Ohio as it is in many other states nearing the conclusion of their 2011 state legislative sessions. The legislature in the Buckeye state operates on a year-round calendar. That said a remedy to this presidential primary situation should arise sooner rather than later.

Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for passing this news along.

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Alabama Senate Passes Bill to Consolidate All Primaries in March

UPDATE: Perhaps I was too hard on Alabama legislators in the original update below. As it turns out, HB 425 moves the Alabama primaries to the second Tuesday in March which coincides with the Mississippi primary on March 13. This sets up an interesting series of contests from March 6-13. Texas would anchor the March 6 set of southern primaries with Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Virginia. That would be followed by Louisiana (assuming the move there is completed) on Saturday, March 10 and Alabama and Mississippi on March 13 the following Tuesday.

Thanks to Richard Winger at Ballot Access News for pointing out our error.

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Original Post:

The Alabama Senate voted this afternoon in favor of HB 425. The legislation would shift the presidential primary back from the first Tuesday in February to the first second Tuesday in March and the primaries for state and local offices up from the first Tuesday in June to the same March date. The move will save the state nearly $4 million if Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (R) signs the legislation. The bill passed 21-11 and now heads to the governor's desk for his consideration.

Alabama joins both Colorado and Missouri as states where legislatures have passed measures moving 2012 delegate selection events to March 6. All three are awaiting gubernatorial approval. As of today the legislation in Colorado and Missouri has been officially passed on to the governors in the respective states. Alabama and Missouri would move into compliance with national party rules while Colorado would be bumped up by two weeks to the earliest allowed date under national party delegate selection rules. Together, all three bills are expected to be signed.

UPDATE: Here are a couple of quotation from Alabama senators on the move (via Jason Cannon at The Demopolis Times):

“This legislation will help save Alabama taxpayer-dollars by having Alabama primary election on the same day as the Presidential Primary elections, and put the tax dollars of hard working Alabamians to better use,” said Senator Scott Beason (R – Jefferson). “Alabama will once again be at the forefront of national attention during the presidential election process as more national candidates will come to Alabama since we will be an early primary state,” Beason added.

Senate Majority leader Jabo Waggonner (R-Vestavia), said, “by moving the Alabama Primary election to the same day as the Presidential Primary election we will save the state of Alabama $3.9 million dollars.”

At some point state legislators are going to wise up to this "earlier equals more attention" mindset. Granted, Alabama legislators are merely attempting to keep with or slightly ahead of the curve. The chances that the state receives any more than the 13 candidate visits it received in 2008 are pretty low. March 6 will be slightly less crowded in 2012 than February 5 was in 2008, but it won't translate into a significant gain in terms of attention for the state. Holding a primary a week later, on March 13, with western neighbor, Mississippi, might be a more advantageous position. Admittedly, that might be a gamble if it appears as if the nomination will be decided on or before March 6. But we're too far out to know that with any level of certainty.

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Michigan Democrats Call on State Republicans to Cancel Presidential Primary

In a press item¹ released on Monday, the Michigan Democratic Party called on Republicans in the state to cancel the Wolverine state's 2012 presidential primary. Democrats cited the $10 million savings as the prime reason for the call and raised the point that Michigan Democrats will allocate delegates to their national convention via caucuses. The primary, then, would cost the state the same amount, but only be used by one of the parties as a means of allocating delegates.

The release is new, but the sentiment is not. Michigan Democratic legislators earlier in the month bemoaned the budget expenditure for the primary, but Republicans deferred:

Resolving that conflict [the presidential primary issue] is “a discussion further down the road,” said Michigan Republican Party spokesman Matt Davis. He said it’s up to the Legislature to pay for a primary that’s required under current law.

That may be, but the Republican-controlled legislature is likely to wait until later in the year -- when Michigan Republicans make their decision on when and how to allocated their delegates in August -- before moving on the presidential primary question and relatedly, whether to fund it.

But Democrats came with additional ammunition, seeking -- futilely perhaps -- to goad Republicans closed to their position. Understandably, Republicans in any state would be hesitant to shift from a primary to a caucus in a year in which the Republican presidential nomination is at stake based on a loss of (candidate and media) attention (see Gurian 1993). But Democrats pointed to the fact that the state canceled its 2004 primary when only the Democratic Party had a competitive presidential nomination race. That seems like a good point, save for two realities. First, Republicans controlled the legislature in 2003 when the primary was canceled. Sure Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm signed off on the move, but it was a Republican-initiated effort (see SB 397, five Republican co-sponsors) that received Democratic support in the legislature.²

And while that can be dismissed as a bipartisan effort that lends some credence to the point of the Michigan Democratic Party ("Let's work together and save the state some money."), the history of the two Michigan parties in presidential nominations should not be ignored. That is the second point. Michigan Republicans have historically been more active in presidential nominations. This has come in fits and starts, but Michigan Republicans began their 1988 delegate selection process in 1986, held a February primary in 2000 (while Democrats were forced to hold a later caucus) and there's the 2008 presidential primary saga in Michigan. Granted, Michigan Democrats were being proactive in going along with Republicans in the legislature in moving the primary up and into violation of both parties' delegate selection rules.

This is a long way of saying that Michigan Democrats probably shouldn't hold their breath on this. Even if it does work out and Michigan Republicans opt for a caucus system, we won't know that until August.

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¹ Full Press Release:

Michigan Democrats Call on Michigan GOP to Agree to Cancel Presidential Primary, Save Hundreds of Jobs

LANSING – The Michigan Democratic Party today called on Michigan Republicans to agree with Democrats to cancel the 2012 presidential primary election, which would cost the state $10 million dollars. The Michigan Democratic Party will not participate in the primary and will instead hold a presidential caucus on May 5, 2012.

“Canceling the primary and saving $10 million would help to save more than 200 jobs for teachers, police officers, firefighters, and emergency responders,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer said. “This money is much better spent protecting jobs and Michigan families rather than on a primary election.”

“We have chosen not to participate in a primary and to hold a caucus to save the state money,” continued Brewer. “We ask the Republicans to agree with us to cancel the primary and help save jobs.”

The 2004 Michigan presidential primary was canceled by agreement of the parties, saving money. This year, Republicans and Democrats in several states, including Washington and Kansas, have already passed legislation to cancel the presidential primary to save money.

Schools are already suffering thanks to Governor Snyder’s budget that cuts public education, and unfairly increases taxes on seniors, middle class families, and low-wage workers all to pay for a record tax giveaway to CEOs, banks, and insurance companies. The Lansing School District alone would be forced to lay-off dozens of teachers – leading to increased class sizes and less individual attention for students.

“The people who will really suffer with this budget are our kids,” Lansing School District teacher Alfonso Salais said. “We need to be investing in our kids and putting money back into the classroom. This budget tells our students that we don’t care about their future and that’s wrong. We need to save money anywhere we can so we have more to put back into schools. Canceling an unnecessary presidential primary will help save $10 millions and more than 200 teachers’ jobs and will provide a better education for our students in Michigan so they can compete in a global economy.”

Concluded Salais, “The savings of $10 million to invest in educational resources and other service-oriented professions, will provide concrete proof to the citizens of Michigan that their children’s future and the needs of the people are a priority.”

² The bill passed unanimously in both chambers.

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Louisiana House Unanimously Passes Bill to Move Presidential Primary to March

The Louisiana House this morning unanimously passed (84-0) HB 509. The bill shifts the Pelican state's presidential primary from the second (or third) Saturday in February to the Saturday after the first Tuesday in March. Should this bill pass the legislature and be signed into law, it would place the Louisiana primary on the Saturday after many of the state's southern counterparts hold contests on March 6 (Texas, Oklahoma, Virginia and very likely Alabama and Missouri).

The bill now moves on to the DemocraticRepublican-controlled Senate.¹ The bill is Republican-sponsored and just passed the Republican-controlled House, but obviously garnered bipartisan support. That is likely attributable to the fact that the legislation would bring the primary date into compliance with both national parties' delegate selection rules. Both parties, in other words, are on board with the move to March.

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¹ FHQ's go-to site for partisan control of state legislatures has been the National Conference of State Legislatures State Vote 2010 site. Unfortunately that is a static site and does not account for changes like the party switches in the Louisiana Senate since the first of the year.

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Texas Presidential Primary to Stay on March 6

The Texas House today passed SB 100, the amended version of which does not have the April presidential primary provision contained in it. The original, Senate-passed version did not call for the primary to be moved to April either. Together, that ends the April presidential primary talk in the Lone Star state.

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The move -- non-move really -- does put the Texas Republican Party in a bit of a bind, though. The party has typically used winner-take-all delegate allocation rules in the past, but the Republican National Committee will not allow that in 2012 before April 1. Texas Republicans are further constrained by the fact that the party's delegate allocation rules cannot be changed between now and the March 6 primary. Those sorts of changes can only be made at the state convention and the 2011 state convention has already come and gone. The party, then, is in the proportional window, but with winner-take-all rules, leaving Texas Republicans open to penalties (half the delegation or more) from the national party.

NOTE: Technically, HB 318, the bill to move the Texas primary to February, is still active. However, that legislation has been stuck in committee since February, and with the legislature set to adjourn next week, that is unlikely to change. FHQ, thus, feels comfortable in shifting Texas into the settled category on the calendar.

See the updated 2012 presidential primary calendar here.

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Brownback's Signature Cancels 2012 Kansas Primary

No, given precedent, the fact that Governor Sam Brownback (R) signed HB 2080 into law today, canceling the Sunflower state's 2012 presidential primary, should not come as a surprise. Kansas has not held a presidential primary since 1992, opting instead for cost savings and party-run caucuses. 2012 will now be no exception. The state stands to save $2 million by suspending the 2012 primary and waiting on 2016.

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Kansas Democrats have already centered in April 14 as the party's caucus date in its delegate selection plan. The Republican Party of Kansas will now be moved from the April 3 primary date -- now that it has been canceled -- to "no date" on FHQ's 2012 presidential primary calendar map.

UPDATE: This move makes Kansas the second state to cancel its presidential primary for 2012 in order to save funds (Washington was the first.). It will also likely be the last. Both Kansas and Washington were quirky cases. Kansas has obviously been canceling primaries for several consecutive cycles. Washington does not have the history of suspending primaries, but neither state party has fully utilized the primary to allocate delegates. The savings made sense in both cases. There is no legislation active elsewhere to cancel a presidential primary. There are, however, several states with legislation to eliminate separate presidential primaries; combining them with primaries for state and local offices.

See the updated 2012 presidential primary calendar here.

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Floor Amendments Strip Out April Presidential Primary Provision from Texas House Bill

The Texas House on Tuesday considered the House Committee Substitute to SB 100. The bill, as it emerged from the Defense and Veterans' Affairs Committee, would have shifted the Texas presidential primary -- as well as the primaries for statewide and local offices -- from the first Tuesday in March to the first Tuesday in April. One of the five amendments adopted on the House floor yesterday struck that part of the legislation and substituted the original Senate version of that section that addressed just the timing of the runoff election.

That means that the Texas legislature has chosen to go the constitutional amendment route. The debate was over whether to move the primary date back or to change the filing deadline date to comply with the mandates of the federal MOVE act. With the former now eliminated as an option, the decision has been made to change the filing deadline. But that requires a slight change to the resign-to-run provision in the Texas constitution that requires politicians seeking higher office to resign their current position if more than a year remains in the term of that position. The filing deadline has subsequently been set for January 2 in the year of an election, allowing ambitious politicians the ability to throw their hats in the ring of a contest for higher office with less than a year on their current term. In other words, they don't have to resign. To shift that deadline into December would force potential candidates' hands. The only way to remedy that discrepancy in light of the requirements of the MOVE act is to amend the constitution to change the resign-to-run provision in some way.

Such an amendment has been running along a parallel track to SB 100 all along. SJR 37 would amend the Texas constitution and lengthen that window (the time left in the term of one office) from one year to one year and thirty days. That resolution passed the state Senate in mid-April and passed the House and was enrolled yesterday. The change would allow candidates holding lower office to file for a higher office in December of the year preceding a general election without having to resign their current office.

Constitutional amendments aside, the bottom line here is that Texas will maintain its first Tuesday in March presidential primary. Assuming Colorado and Missouri finalize their moves to March 6, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Colorado and Virginia would form a contiguous grouping of contests at the beginning of the window in which primaries and caucuses can officially be held.

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Louisiana Republicans Craft New Delegate Rules and Possible January Caucuses

Much may be made of the Louisiana Republican State Central Committee's vote this weekend on a set of delegate selection rules to governor the Republican nomination process in the Pelican state. Here's how Jonathan Martin at Politico describes the process:

The Louisiana Republican Party voted last weekend to move up their presidential caucuses to earlier in 2012, a move that could attract more GOP candidates to the state this year.

The state party is eyeing the last week of January or early February, depending on how the still-unsettled primary calendar is ultimately set.

To stay within RNC rules and out of the early-state window, the Louisiana GOP has set up a two-step process for picking presidential delegates. The winter caucuses will elect 25 delegates per congressional district. Presidential candidates will run slates of delegates in each of the congressional districts. Caucus participants will have the option of voting for 25 individuals or simply checking the box for a candidate and his or her official slate. Delegates could run as uncommitted, but most are likely to run on a candidate slate.

Now, Martin goes on to state that Louisiana has done this before, holding a dual primary/caucus system with an early, out-of-window caucus and a later, compliant primary in 1996. Yes, Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) falling flat in the early, pre-Iowa Louisiana caucuses that year was interpreted as significant. It is often cited as, if not the death knell, then as a significant blow to the senator's campaign. That may be, but that also obscures a bigger point here: 1996 was not the last time Louisiana Republicans had such rules. In fact, at one point or another during each of the successive cycles, the party has held a parallel caucus/convention system alongside its primary to allocate a portion of the state's delegates to the Republican convention. Delegate allocation via the caucuses was canceled in 2000 by the state party very late in 1999, preceded the primaries but still fell within the "window" in 2004 and looked very similar to the plans for 2012 in 2008.

Yeah, that's right: Louisiana Republicans quietly held January 22 district caucuses -- the same as what is being proposed for 2012 -- in 2008. Going back to our discussions from the other day, this complies with Republican National Committee rules. No delegates are directly allocated in that first step of the process. Delegates pledged to a particular candidate move on to the next step, but the three delegates to the national convention per congressional district, for instance, are not directly allocated.

FHQ, then, is not terribly concerned with this move as a potential violation of the rules. That is the case because it is probably not a threat to Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. It wasn't in 2008 at least, and that January 22 date fell at a point in the calendar where nothing else was going on. South Carolina and Nevada Republicans held contests on January 19 and South Carolina Democrats held the next delegate selection event on January 26. The next Republican contest wasn't until Florida on January 29. In other words, those Louisiana caucuses were scheduled at a time that should technically have garnered the state some attention, but did not. The Republican candidates' focus had shifted to Florida. And that was arguably because the Louisiana caucuses were not binding.

The contests, especially the timing of them in Louisiana, is not problematic, but other parts of the delegate selection plan may run afoul of RNC rules. One issue that was not raised in the Politico piece, but that did come up in a New Orleans Times-Picayune article over the weekend deals the vote threshold for gaining any delegates to the convention:

The new rules say a candidate has to receive at least 25 percent of the popular vote in the primary to be allocated "at-large delegates in proportion to the percentage of votes received." The remaining at-large delegates will go to Tampa uncommitted.

That 25% threshold is a violation of the RNC rules (see Section III, part iv). Under the guidelines passed by the Republican National Committee which set the maximum at 20%. Candidates in a state with a 20% threshold, then, have to receive at least 20% of the vote in order to receive any delegates from that contest. Louisiana with a 25% threshold would be in violation of the Republican rules. That, though, is a minor point, but of greater significance than the possibility of an early and seemingly non-compliant caucus.

Hat tip to Tony Roza at The Green Papers for brining the Politico article to my attention.

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Kansas Democrats Plan to Caucus on April 14

The Kansas Democratic Party on Tuesday released for public comment the draft of its 2012 delegate selection plan. The cancelation of the Kansas presidential primary has been inevitable for a while now -- both because the state has not held a primary since 1992 and because legislation to cancel the primary has slowly worked its way through the legislature. The question, then, for the two parties in Kansas has not been one of primary or caucus, but when the parties will hold their respective caucuses. More and more state Democratic parties have tip their hands over the last few months and now the Democratic Party in Kansas has joined the list, selecting April 14 as the date on which their delegate selection process will kick off with local caucuses.

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That date coincides with the date Democrats in northern neighbor, Nebraska, chose in their own delegate selection plan. This is a nice, if indirect, nod to the DNC's rewarding of neighboring states that coordinate the dates of their delegate selection events. According to the national party's delegate selection rules, three or more neighboring states that hold concurrent primaries/caucuses after March 20 receive a 15% delegate bonus. Kansas and Nebraska are limited in their options of adding another partner. Iowa will be at the front of the line, Missouri's and Oklahoma's primaries and likely Colorado's caucuses will be on March 6, and South Dakota will bring up the rear of the calendar in June. That leaves Wyoming Democrats, who have indicated an April 7 -- a week earlier -- date in their own delegate selection plan. It should be noted that these are after all just drafts and are potentially apt to be altered based on public comment, in order to get DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee approval or a combination of the two.

See an updated version of the 2012 presidential primary calendar here.

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