2008 Republican Delegate Allocation Rules by State

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NOTES:
1. FHQ will not dive too far into all of this now. This is, along with the 2012 post, should serve as a baseline to which the 2016 rules as they come more into focus can be compared.

2. The Republican delegate allocation in 2008 may be a better prism through which to view the aggregate patchwork of rules that will govern the 2016 Republican presidential nomination process at the state level. FHQ says that because the expectation is that there will be a handful (to a great deal) more winner-take-all states in 2016. The addition of the proportionality window in 2012 had something to do with the 11 winner-take-all states in 2008 dropping to just 6 in 2012. Two of those five states (Connecticut and New York) voluntarily adopted more proportional rules even with later primary dates outside of the proportionality window. Missouri switched a caucus with no formal rules in 2012. Only Vermont and Virginia had primaries scheduled in the 2012 proportionality window, forcing a change to a more proportional method of allocation from a truly winner-take-all plan.

3. In the aggregate, it appears that most of those winner-take-all (2008) turned more proportional (2012) states went from the truly winner-take-all category in 2008 to the truly proportional category in 2012. When we push the examination down to the individual (state) level, the shuffling is more complex (see previous paragraph).

4. Again, FHQ should note that those states in the hybrid category tend to be more like proportional states than truly winner-take-all states in terms of the underlying allocation. Together, hybrid and proportional states comprised two-thirds of the total delegates available in the 2008 Republican presidential nomination process. Importantly, 10 of the 11 winner-take-all states were on or before February 12, 2008 (the week after Super Tuesday). John McCain won all of those early truly winner-take-all states except Utah. That provided a significant delegate cushion for the Arizona senator over his challengers.

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Republican Delegate Allocation Rules: 2012 vs. 2008

Let the questions be answered.

The RNC released yesterday the final piece of the puzzle in terms of how delegates will be allocated in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.¹ Now, FHQ has been saying all along that, theoretically, the changes to the delegate selection rules would not affect states and subsequently the candidates and their efforts to win more delegates all that much. Again, theoretically. At issue has been whether a state had to in some way abandon either straight winner-take-all delegate allocation or a hybrid system with winner-take-all allocation of at-large (base and bonus) delegates and congressional district delegates for a more proportional method in states with contests before April 1. Some change was inevitable, but because the rules change was treated as black and white -- that Republican winner-take-all states now had to be proportional before April 1 -- the impact of the change has been consistently overstated.

Well, now the unknown is known and we can examine just how much of a change has occurred in state delegate selection rules relative to 2008. Since so many states shifted back the dates on which their primaries and caucuses will be held in 2012, the number of straight winner-take-all states -- those that allocate all of their delegates based on the statewide vote -- was fairly limited. Florida, Arizona, Vermont and Virginia were forced to depart from their past method of allocation. [Of course, already penalized for holding contests before the first Tuesday in March, both Florida and Arizona opted to continue with straight winner-take-all rules under the rationale that they could not be penalized further.] Still other states had winner-take-all allocation but had that split up between the at-large delegates and the congressional district delegates. That latter group of states had in place a set of rules that were already fit for a change. The straight winner-take-all states had a much greater move to make.

With that said, though, what have states done to comply with the new rules on delegate allocation? More importantly, what could states do to comply? Let's take the second question first. There are two main responses that states could have made to most easily comply with the new RNC rules.

One option is to simply keep the same old winner-take-all rules -- straight or hybrid -- and make winner-take-all allocation dependent upon one candidate clearing the 50% mark in the statewide vote. If no candidate reaches that level, the allocation is proportional. But even that has been interpreted to widely varying degrees. For a straight winner-take-all state like Virginia, they could have put in that threshold and moved on. However, for a hybrid winner-take-all state like Ohio, where the winner-take-all allocation is based on votes both statewide and within the congressional district, that sort of threshold was only necessary -- according to the RNC rules -- on the at-large (base and bonus) delegates based on the statewide vote.

The second option is for states to either just switch to straight proportional allocation or to shift to allocating the at-large (base and bonus) delegates proportionally, leaving the congressional district delegates to be allocated winner-take-all. FHQ has always operated under the assumption -- let's call it an unofficial hypothesis -- that state parties would do whatever is necessary to comply with these sorts rules changes, but make the least amount of change possible. That is why I say it is harder for a straight winner-take-all state than a state that already has the allocation split into statewide and congressional district votes. There are easier outs for the latter simply because they can stay relatively close to what they had previously than a straight winner-take-all state. Regardless, either type of state could, at a minimum, make the allocation of the at-large (base and bonus) delegates proportional and be done. At the opposite end of the spectrum, states could just make everything proportional and break with a winner-take-all past.

Fine, so what have the states done?

Well, in looking at the table below, FHQ has a few observations. The first, and perhaps the biggest, is that the states on the calendar through February have made no changes to their delegate allocation from 2008. They were already compliant with the 2008 method or were penalized for an early primary or caucus date and stuck with the 2008 rules knowing the RNC would not punish them further (...or daring the national party to do so). There is a chance, then, that if this nomination race resolves itself quickly, the rules changes will have no impact. Well, the new winner-take-all/proportional rules will not have had an impact. The new calendar restrictions -- no states before the first Tuesday in March other than the exempt states -- will play a bigger role in that scenario.

If, however, the race stretches into March, that is when we may start seeing the winner-take-all/proportional changes influence the race. Looking at the March states and matching 2012 to 2008, the most frequent response to the rules changes was for states to tack on a conditional element to their allocation rules. Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia -- all Super Tuesday states -- added a conditional element to their allocation rules. Winner-take-all allocation is dependent upon a candidate receiving over 50% of the vote, statewide and/or on the congressional district level.² This is an important point. That 50% threshold is really going to play a role if the field has been winnowed down to just two candidates. Actually, FHQ has made this point before: The fewer candidates there are, the more likely it is that someone breaks 50% of the vote, and subsequently takes all the delegates in any of these conditional states. Those January/February states become very important. In fact, that lull throughout much of February may be a killer for any candidate clinging to just a modicum of viability at that point. Voters will start limiting their choices to those who are most likely to win and if the likes of Bachmann and Santorum and whoever are not already out, that stretch will be very difficult to survive through.

Obviously, in a scenario where there is a Clinton/Obama-type struggle for the 2012 Republican nomination, these rules are going to matter. But if Romney wins Iowa and wins where he is "supposed to" after that, the former Massachusetts governor will win the nomination and the rules won't play that much of a role. Looking at both the changes to the calendar and the changes the states have made, I can see something in the middle of those two extremes being most likely. The early contests get split, but it favors Romney, the February dead period puts significant strain on the candidates trying to stay in the race but without the resources to make it happen, and Romney breaks 50% in some of these conditional winner-take-all states on March 6. That would put a significant amount of pressure on any other candidates from a delegate math perspective. At that point, it becomes a matter of making up the delegate deficit for any non-Romney candidate. Some later winner-take-all contests would theoretically help, but there are very few straight winner-take-all states to completely shut out Romney as the calendar enters April. There are a handful, but likely not enough.

The bottom line is that there are no changes to the rules up front. Those start kicking in in March. But at that point, it could be too late for those changes to make any difference. If anything, history tells us that the nomination will wrap up sooner rather than later (...and that has been true in strictly proportional Democratic races with similar calendars). The question now is how long will this race last? The race needs to last long enough for the rules to kick in, which will, in turn, draw the race out even further. That is not how people have been thinking about this. Instead, the standard thought is that the new rules will prolong the process.

Now the process just has to get to a point where those rules would matter. We shall see.

2008 vs. 2012 Republican Delegate Allocation
January
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
IA	28	12	10	3	3	Caucus3	Caucus
NH	12	--	--	--	--	Prop.	Prop.
SC	25	--	--	--	--	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
FL	50	--	--	--	--	WTA	WTA
February
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
NV	28	12	10	3	3	Prop.	Prop.
CO	36	21	10	2	3	Caucus	Caucus
MN	40	24	10	3	3	Caucus	Caucus
ME	24	6	10	5	3	Caucus	Caucus
AZ	29	--	--	--	--	WTA	WTA
MI	30	--	--	--	--	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large
March
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
WA	43	30	10	--	3	Caucus	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large
AK	27	3	10	11	3	Prop.	Prop.
GA	76	42	10	21	3	Top 2/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD
ID	32	6	10	13	3	Caucus (80% Prop.)	Prop.
MA	41	27	10	1	3	Prop.	Prop.
ND	28	3	10	12	3	Caucus	Caucus
OH	66	48	10	5	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA/CD
OK	43	15	10	15	3	Conditional WTA	WTA/CD
TN	58	27	10	18	3	Conditional WTA*	Conditional WTA
VT	17	3	10	1	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
VA	49	33	10	3	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
VI	9	--	6	-	3	Caucus	Caucus
WY	29	3	10	13	3	Prop./CD--Convention/at-large	Prop./CD--Convention/at-large
KS	40	12	10	15	3	WTA/CD--Prop./at-large	WTA/CD
AL	50	21	10	16	3	Conditional WTA	Conditional WTA
AS	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
HI	20	6	10	1	3	Caucus	Caucus
MS	40	12	10	15	3	Prop.	Conditional WTA
MO	52	24	10	15	3	Caucus	WTA
PR	23		10	10	3	Caucus	Caucus
IL	69	54	10	2	3	Loophole	Loophole
LA	46	18	10	15	3	Caucus/CD--Prop./at-large	Caucus/CD--Prop./at-large
April
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
MD	37	24	10	--	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
TX	155	108	10	34	3	Prop.	Conditional WTA
DC	19	--	10	6	3	WTA	WTA
WI	42	24	10	5	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
CT	28	15	10	--	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--WTA/CD	WTA
DE	17	3	10	1	3	WTA	WTA
NY	95	81	10	1	3	Conditional WTA/at-large--Top 2/CD	WTA
PA	72	54	10	5	3	Loophole	Loophole
RI	19	6	10	--	3	Prop.	Prop.
May
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
IN	46	27	10	6	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
NC	55	39	10	3	3	Prop.	Prop.
WV	31	9	10	9	3	Loophole	WTA/CD--caucus
NE	35	9	10	13	3	Convention	Convention
OR	28	15	10	--	3	Prop.	Prop.
AR	36	12	10	11	3	Conditional Prop.	Conditional Prop.
KY	45	18	10	14	3	Prop.	Prop.
June
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
CA	172	159	10	--	3	WTA/CD	WTA/CD
MT	26	3	10	10	3	Caucus	Convention
NJ	50	36	10	1	3	WTA	WTA
NM	23	9	10	1	3	Prop.	Prop.
SD	28	3	10	12	3	Prop.	Prop.
UT	40	12	10	15	3	WTA	WTA
No Date
State	Total Delegates	District Delegates	Base Delegates	Bonus Delegates	Automatic Delegates	2012 Rules1	2008 Rules2
GU	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
MP	9	--	6	--	3	Caucus	Caucus
1 Source: Republican National Committee Counsel's Office 2 Source: The Green Papers 3 Key: WTA = winner-take-all; WTA/CD = winner-take-all by congressional district and statewide; conditional WTA = winner-take-all if candidate clears 50%, proportional otherwise; top 2 = top two candidates all allocated delegates if no candidate receives a majority; prop. = proportional; caucus = caucus; convention = convention; loophole = delegates directly elected (on primary ballot)

NOTE: FHQ should note that this RNC release is not a death knell for our examination of the state-by-state rules. The above is a 30,000 foot view of the process, but there is still a lot under the hood that is worth talking about in greater detail. That obviously could not be forced into on giant post. Continue to be on the lookout for that in the coming weeks under the 2012 Republican Delegate Allocation series label.

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¹ Below is the summary of delegate allocation from the Republican National Committee:
2012 RNC Delegate Summary

² Tennessee has a higher 66% threshold. It will be very difficult to a candidate to get to that mark in a multicandidate field.

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Howard Dean: Right on Rules, Wrong on History

Former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and DNC chair, Howard Dean has an interesting op/ed online at the Washington Post. Basically, he is making the same arguments FHQ has been making since 2009 and 2010: That the delegate selection rules and penalties put in place by the Republican National Committee for the 2012 cycle were not sufficient to prevent the type of calendar positioning used by states  in 2008.  Said Dean:

But states do not have the legal right to change the national party’s rules. If the national parties are willing to use their power to protect the integrity of the process, they can force states into compliance. The Republican Party seems unwilling to do so. Its first mistake happened months ago, when it decided that states that move their primaries would lose 50 percent, rather than 100 percent, of their delegates. Under the current system, for example, even if Florida violates the rules and loses half its 198 delegates, it would still have more than New Hampshire (23) and Iowa (28) combined. As a candidate, if you think you can win Florida, there is no reason not to encourage the state to move its date.

...

As the RNC considers its options, it should remember that while states are under no obligation to pay for the nominating contests set by the national parties, the parties are under no obligation to recognize the results from states that have violated the rules. To preserve the agreed-upon system in this cycle, the RNC must show it is prepared to enforce the rules, and to consider additional sanctions if necessary.

Dean's right. He is correct that the lack of changes to the RNC rules have led to the Arizona mess, the Florida problem and the Nevada-New Hampshire dispute. FHQ also agrees with the former governor that the best way to keep states in line is to remove the carrot that entices states into moving in the first place: candidate and media attention (and the benefits that go along with that). By crafting and enforcing tough rules and penalties on violating states and by punishing candidates who campaign in those states, a national party would be on firm footing to deal with the "rogue" problem. Again, this is something that FHQ has recently argued in favor of.


In all fairness, particularly to the RNC, though, Dean has partially revised history here. The Democratic Party did not have a rule to strip a state of 100% of its delegates for violation of the timing rules during the 2008 cycle. Rule 20.C.1.a from the delegate selection rules that bear the former party chairman's name says:

Violation of timing: In the event the Delegate Selection Plan of a state partyprovides or permits a meeting, caucus, convention or primary which constitutesthe first determining stage in the presidential nominating process to be held priorto or after the dates for the state as provided in Rule 11 of these rules, or in theevent a state holds such a meeting, caucus, convention or primary prior to or aftersuch dates, the number of pledged delegates elected in each category allocated to the state pursuant to the Call for the National Convention shall be reduced byfifty (50%) percent, and the number of alternates shall also be reduced by fifty(50%) percent. In addition, none of the members of the Democratic NationalCommittee and no other unpledged delegate allocated pursuant to Rule 8.A. fromthat state shall be permitted to vote as members of the state’s delegation. Indetermining the actual number of delegates or alternates by which the state’sdelegation is to be reduced, any fraction below .5 shall be rounded down to thenearest whole number, and any fraction of .5 or greater shall be rounded up to thenext nearest whole number.

Yes, the DNC rules called for the same 50% penalty for which both the RNC and DNC rules for 2012 call. The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee in the late summer of 2007 decided to make an example of Florida and increase the 50% penalty to 100%. That same penalty was imposed on Michigan when it did not heed the party's warning. 

Dean also forgets how all of this played out in 2008. The same Rules and Bylaws Committee later gave Florida and Michigan both half of their delegates back in a meeting the weekend prior to the last round of primaries in early June. And then the party seated the full delegations from both states at the Denver convention later in the summer. 

Howard Dean is absolutely right about the type of penalties and enforcement necessary to correct this quadrennial issue, but he in no way does his argument any service by claiming that the Democratic Party did not do in 2008 exactly what he claims the RNC is now doing. Both parties are guilty of caving into the states and it would benefit both to work together to craft a plan and enforcement mechanism that would help the two national parties present a unified front against any would-be rogue states in the future.

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Mitt Romney's already got trouble in Nevada?

Is it already time to poke holes in the chances of a nominal frontrunner for one of the parties' presidential nominations? Who had February 13th in the pool?

FHQ could deride the story on Romney in Nevada that appeared on the Boston Globe's Political Intelligence blog for coming way too early, but on a weekend when CPAC straw poll results are being overhyped, it is actually in the right place (see full item below). The take-home is that Romney will likely find it difficult to repeat his Silver state performance from 2008. Matt Viser attributes that to Ron Paul/Tea Party support in the Nevada leftover from 2008 and 2010 (more on Paul's supporters and the impact they had on the 2008 Nevada Republican convention here), and while that is not off the mark, it misses one very important piece of the puzzle from the last cycle.

The former Massachusetts governor was able to exploit the Nevada caucuses for a number of reasons (a general popularity in the west, religion, organization -- especially in western caucus states), but the fact that most of Romney's opponents were focused on the South Carolina Republican primary on the same day had as much of an influence on the results in both those states as anything else. If, given the rules changes nationally (Republican rules placing the Nevada caucuses third in the process) and within the state (the party making the first step of the caucus binding in terms of delegate allocation -- a change from 2008), Nevada has the spotlight to itself, then it should not only likely be understood that the 2012 candidates will pay more attention to the Silver state, but that Mitt Romney will find it difficult to crack the 50% barrier in the 2012 Nevada caucuses.

As for FHQ, we are still skeptical that the South Carolina Republican Party will actually cede its traditional third in line position in the Republican nomination process for Nevada. It should be noted that the Republican rules, unlike the Democratic rules, provide no dates for any of the exempt nominating contests; only that they should have a position in February ahead of all the other contests that are supposed to begin in March. But that's a story for another time.

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Nevada could be daunting task for Romney

by Matt Viser, Globe staff

LAS VEGAS — Mitt Romney has a lot riding on Nevada as he readies his early-state strategy for a possible Republican primary campaign, but changes in the state’s caucus rules and surge of Tea Party activism will make the state a tougher environment for him than 2008, when Romney romped with more than 50 percent of the vote.

Nevada falls third in the tentative primary schedule, and it holds outsized importance for the former Massachusetts governor. If he runs for president, as appears likely, he would not be expected to win the early states of Iowa or South Carolina.

Under almost any scenario, that means he must win in New Hampshire. And Nevada, falling just after the Granite State, would present the second key test of his strength.
By the numbers, Romney — who is scheduled to visit Las Vegas on Monday — should perform strongly in the Silver State. An estimated 7.5 percent of Nevada residents share Romney’s Mormon faith, and exit polls showed Mormons accounted for one in four caucus voters in 2008.

But while he would start the 2012 Nevada contest with a formidable organization and as the overwhelming favorite, the landscape in this Western state is more hostile.

Seeking to become more than a primary backwater bypassed by most candidates, Nevada changed its caucus rules for next year’s campaign to make the outcome binding on its delegates to the Republican National Convention.

The intent was to increase the state’s prominence in the primaries, and it’s working. Nevada is attracting stronger interest from such would-be candidates as Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty, who have made early visits and are planning more.

The rightward tug of insurgents in the Republican Party, meanwhile, has added a measure of anti-establishment volatility to the Nevada electorate that was largely absent four years ago and could seriously hurt Romney, whose health care plan in Massachusetts, used as the model for the national overhaul last year, is widely despised by conservatives.

‘‘Mitt Romney has a strong Mormon base of support in Nevada that will continue,’’ said Chuck Muth, a conservative activist who is planning to host candidate forums at a bar with a mechanical bull, just south of the Vegas strip. ‘‘The biggest hurdle for Mitt Romney to overcome is RomneyCare.’’

Romney, who is expected to announce his candidacy in the spring, declined requests for an interview. Like most other potential candidates, Romney has been quietly testing the waters for a run. He appeared Sunday in Washington at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual event that attracts many presidential aspirants. He will travel to Las Vegas on Monday to speak at a business convention on the strip.

Romney is ahead in the polls in Nevada and his supporters maintain he can attract Tea Party support by talking about fiscal conservatism and other issues important to the party’s right wing.

‘‘No one candidate is going to get every Tea Party vote in Nevada,’’ said Ryan Erwin, a top political consultant in the state who is prepared to lead Romney’s state operation. ‘‘But regardless of whether we are talking about activists in the Tea Party movement or those who simply share the philosophy, voters focused on balanced budgets and fiscal restraint in Nevada are largely Romney people.’’

Romney has been defending the 2006 Massachusetts health plan, the signature accomplishment of his gubernatorial administration, as an example of a state exercising its powers to solve problems within its borders. He criticizes the Obama plan, by contrast, as a federal overreach that usurps states’ rights.

That argument has yet to appease Tea Party activists.

Sharron Angle, the Tea Party candidate who stunned the GOP by winning Nevada’s Senate primary last year before losing to Majority Leader Harry Reid, would not criticize Romney directly in an interview. But she said the Massachusetts health plan will be a factor in the Nevada election.

‘‘It failed, and we know that this Obamacare is unconstitutional,’’ she said. ‘‘I think that those kinds of things are going to come into play during the presidential election.’’
Surveys of Republican Nevada voters have shown Romney with a moderate lead. A poll conducted last month by Public Policy Polling put Romney at 31 percent, compared to Sarah Palin (19 percent), Gingrich (18 percent), and Mike Huckabee (14 percent).

‘‘The 800-pound gorilla in Republican politics is Mitt Romney,’’ said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. ‘‘You’re going to see him run the traditional top down organization and count on his religious affiliation. But he’s got a lot of issues to overcome.’’

While the mood is uncertain a year before the Nevada caucus (tentatively scheduled for Feb. 18, 2012), a billboard on I-215 leaving Las Vegas warns of the some of the dangers for establishment candidates like Romney: ‘‘Ron Paul 2012.’’ The Texas Republican congressman finished second behind Romney four years ago, and conservative activists want him back in the race.

Paul’s last high-profile trip to the state was in 2009. But several Tea Party favorites — Representative Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, and former Godfather’s Pizza executive Herman Cain — have made multiple visits to the state in recent months. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, a Mormon who is resigning as US ambassador to China and weighing a run for president, could cut into Romney’s church support.

High unemployment, which at 14 percent was the worst in the country in December, and foreclosures are big issues in Nevada and helped fuel voter anger in 2010.
With few formally declared candidates and a year to go, voters have yet to seriously tune in to presidential politics. In a dozen interviews with Nevada Republicans, support for Romney was mixed.

‘‘The key issue here is jobs, jobs, jobs,’’ said Robert Sulliman, a security services manager. ‘‘Who better to make things happen than Mitt Romney?’’

But those who identified themselves as aligned with the Tea Party tended to oppose him.
‘‘I’m not a fan,’’ said Bettye Gilmour, a 67-year-old retired social worker. ‘‘He’s very presidential looking, but he’s too much of a politician.’’

Romney’s organization has not yet geared up in Nevada — but it is ready to go on short notice, said his supporters. His team still has its database of voter identification files — called ‘‘Romney Connect’’ — that will give him a big head start. Romney’s son Josh has been staying in touch with former campaign workers.

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Revisiting Candidacy Announcements: What's Different About 2012?

Sometimes we get grumpy here at FHQ. Sometimes we hate apples to oranges comparisons but fail to see an ounce of goodness in them for the, uh, fruit trees. I don't like the 2012 to 2008 candidacy announcement timing comparison because I think it is a flawed one mainly based on the structural differences between the two elections (in this case, the presence or lack of an incumbent). My preference is to use a similar election to which to compare 2012. However, that can draw the ire (and that's perhaps putting it a little strongly) of others. [If you haven't had a chance to read the comments to yesterday's post -- linked above -- please go do it now. Each makes its own fabulous point.]

Yes, 2012 and 2004 have some similarities, but there are also some significant differences between the dynamics of candidate entry. I don't know that my intention was to put all that much stock into the formation of presidential exploratory committees. Rather, I came across the information and felt that it would be disingenuous for me not to include. What I think I failed to adequately discuss -- and was rightfully called on it -- was the fact that the significance of the exploratory committee is on the decline. This is the simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating thing about the study of the presidential nomination process: the metrics are always changing. They are especially onerous when it comes to campaign finance rules. And that, of course, is where the exploratory committee piece of the puzzle lies. It is a campaign finance creation.

In the aftermath of Obama shunning the federal financing system in the general election in 2008 and in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the mile markers of campaign financing within and among campaigns have changed. To be sure the federal campaign finance system has been eroded, but the raising and distribution of funds from the political action committees of prospective presidential candidates has also changed the game.

What's been lost is that step, that mile marker that was present before, the formation of the exploratory committee. Without that step, what's lost is a concrete metric for demonstrating proximity to jumping in to the presidential nomination race. PACs still do that, but candidates can run for 2012 without actually running in 2012. Candidates can roll any and all PAC efforts into a future senate or gubernatorial or another, but actual presidential bid. [And yes, it should also be noted that candidate visits to early primary or caucus states or the hiring of staff/renting of office space there are also good indicators of this as well.]

At the end of the day, we have a pretty good idea who is running for the Republican nomination. All we're lacking are the official announcements. That said, those candidates are moving more slowly in doing that than other recent candidates. Okay, fine, but why? That's the important question. Part of it is structural. I made the argument for that yesterday. But part of it also has to do, I'd argue (and so too would our trio of commenters from yesterday), with the changing landscape of campaign finance. More specific to 2012, some of these prospective candidates probably want to see how the relationship between the president and the Republican-controlled House plays out -- for a little bit at least -- first.

Regardless, this has been a different progression to the invisible primary than anything witnessed in quite a while. It is an interesting game of "who can hold out the longest" brinksmanship.

[Thanks to MysteryPolitico, Matt and Anonymous for their comments that led to this post.]

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2012 is not 2008. Not Even Candidacy Announcements

Is it just FHQ or are all these comparisons that are popping up comparing the relative lack of presidential candidacy announcements for 2012 to those at this time in 2008 flawed (Dave Weigel, Wall Street Journal)? Structurally speaking, there is a fundamental difference in the motivation to throw one's hat in the ring in a year with an incumbent president running for reelection and one in which both parties have contested nominations (Yes, incumbents can be challenged, but you know what I mean.). 2012 falls into the former category while 2008 does not. 2008 is also different because for the first time since 1952, no representative from the then-current administration was going to seek the, in this case Republican, nomination in 2008. In other words, there was some urgency to jumping into the race in both parties ahead of 2008 simply because both were so wide open.

The result is a false comparison or worse yet, a comparison that is only drawn to have something about which to talk. Look, FHQ wants to talk about the 2012 presidential election process as much as any site or media outlet. Outside of, say, GOP12, we are as guilty as anyone when it comes to talking about 2012. [And there is absolutely nothing wrong with what Christian Heinze has been doing over there since late 2008. That site serves as a solid chronology of actions taken toward what FHQ has called candidate emergence.] But if we're going to talk about 2012, let's at least talk about it in terms that actually advance the conversation in a meaningful way.

If one wants to compare candidacy announcements for 2012, then, one would be better served comparing it to another similar election, like, say, the pace with which Democrats announced their candidacies for the 2004 Democratic nomination. The truth is that at this point in 2003 very few Democrats had done much of anything toward a presidential run either as the table below indicates.

2004 Democratic Presidential Candidacy Announcements
Candidate	Exploratory Committee Formation	Candidacy Announcement
Wesley Clark	--	September 17, 2003
Howard Dean	--	--
John Edwards	January 2, 2003	September 16, 2003
Richard Gephardt	January 4, 2003	February 19, 2003
Bob Graham	--	May 6, 2003
John Kerry	December 1, 2002	September 2, 2003
Dennis Kucinich	February 18, 2003	--
Joe Lieberman	--	January 13, 2003
Carol Moseley-Braun	February 19, 2003	September 22, 2003
Al Sharpton	January 21, 2003	--
Source: P2004 Notes: *News on Dean's exploratory committee and candidacy announcement is not clear on the actual dates, but several articles on the formation of the Kerry campaign's exploratory committee describe Dean as being the "only declared candidate" in December 2002.

How does the 2012 Republican field compare to the Democrats in the 2004 cycle in terms of either the formation of exploratory committees or announcing their candidacies? No Republican has officially announced that they intend to run for the Republican nomination and only Herman Cain has formed an exploratory committee. In other words, there has not been all that much activity. But how active were prospective Democrats at this time in 2003? They had been far more active on the exploratory committee front than actually officially entering the 2004 Democratic nomination race. Heading in 2003, Dean was officially in and Kerry had announced an exploratory committee. Early in January 2003, John Edwards and Richard Gephardt had filed the necessary paperwork establishing their presidential exploratory committees with the Federal Elections Commission and Joe Lieberman had announced his candidacy.

At this time in 2003, then, there were two candidates in the race and another three who had formed exploratory committees. That's more activity than we've seen from the prospective 2012 Republican candidates, but not by much.

...and that serves as a much better baseline for comparison than 2008.

[H/t to Jonathan Bernstein and John Pitney for the Weigel and WSJ links.]

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Wrong! Wrong! A Thousand Times Wrong! One Bit of Misinformation from the Democratic Change Commission's Meeting This Past Weekend

The one big criticism I have of what I've read about the Democratic Change Commission meeting this weekend is that there still is no viable incentive structure in place to get states who have or will in the future want to frontload their presidential primaries and caucuses to move back or stay put. That's a thorny issue, though, at the intersection of state parties, national parties and state legislative jurisdiction, so I don't blame the 37 member group for not having gotten to that point yet. [Their recommendations won't come until after the group's December 5 meeting in Washington.]

However, what I can't forgive is one bit of misinformation that made its way out of the proceedings that is bad, bad, bad. Here's the Q&A exchange with North Carolina State Senator Dan Blue fielding the questions (from DCC member, Suzi LeVine's notes):

Q: what is the situation about states having separate state & presidential primaries? Ie – California did it.

A: expensive – but sense that California being so late is problematic. Last time California went early and they still didn’t get the attention. Very unsatisfactory then. State legislature seems to like moving it up. However, remember that incumbents benefit with an early primary ‘cause challengers haven’t been able to raise money and awareness and these positions are often chosen in the primaries.

Q: How would budget deficit in California affect 2012?

A: Bifurcating the 2 primaries is expensive. Usually have to stay unhitched to address local laws. Brought up the Affect of redistricting (will happen ‘cause of census)

Q: states with federal and state primaries on the same day?

A: most are together – but will find out exact number.

WRUH-ONG! [It is difficult to make something monosyllabic, have two syllables.]

In fact, this is very wrong. By my count, the 2008 primary calendar saw just 13 states with presidential primaries and primaries for state and local offices held concurrently. The remaining states and territories had their presidential nomination contests separate from their statewide and local primaries. And I say nomination contests there because 24 of the remaining 37 states held two separate primaries while the remaining 13 held caucuses for presidential delegate selection and later primaries for the other offices.

Together at Last, or Are They? Presidential Primaries and State and Local Primaries (2008)
Concurrent Primaries	Split Primaries	Caucuses
Illinois Maryland Ohio Texas* Mississippi Pennsylvania Indiana North Carolina West Virginia Kentucky Oregon Montana South Dakota	New Hampshire Michigan South Carolina Florida Arizona Alabama Georgia Arkansas* California Connecticut Delaware Massachusetts Missouri New Jersey New Mexico New York Oklahoma Tennessee Utah Louisiana Virginia Wisconsin Rhode Island Vermont	Maine Minnesota Iowa North Dakota Nebraska Kansas Wyoming Colorado Nevada Idaho Washington Alaska Hawaii

Here's the thing: This idea -- split primaries, as I've called them -- is the number one reason why some states have moved in the time since the McGovern-Fraser reforms that were instituted in 1972 and others have not. In the 1976-1996 period, presidential primary states that already had separate primaries were over five times more likely to move their contests to an earlier date than were those with concurrent presidential and state/local primaries. Once you add the cycles of the hyper-frontloaded era (2000-2008) -- when the incentive, like in 2008, was to move or get left out -- that effect dropped to only twice as likely. And no, that doesn't even take into account the caucus states. With those split caucus states included the effect is even greater.

Why?

Well, those states that have already severed the tie between the two primary types, and have institutionalized the resulting structure over successive presidential election cycles, don't face the same problem states with concurrent primaries have. Concurrent primary states face the start-up costs associated with funding an all new presidential primary election (see constant reference to California's expensive transition in 2008 in the quoted text above). The split primary states have already dealt with and absorbed that cost. Those states, then, are much freer to move their delegate selection events where they please. And since about 1980, the motivation has been to frontload.

So, do more states hold all their primaries together? No, they do not. Two-thirds of the country, in fact, hold separate contests.

*The data for the years prior to 2000 were gather from various sources by the author, but from 2000 onward were thankfully publicly available on The Green Papers.
**Texas could also fall into the caucus category simply because of its hybrid prima-caucus system.
***Arkansas was split for 2008, but has already passed legislation that will eliminate the separate primary in 2012.


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Rick Davis on New Media

This is part two in a series of posts on Rick Davis' recent visit with political science students and faculty at Wake Forest. See part one for some of Davis' thoughts on Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's vice presidential running mate.

The most underrated portion of the hour with Rick Davis this past Tuesday was his discussion of running a presidential campaign in the era of the 25 hour news cycle. [FHQ likes to add an extra hour for emphasis.] But to the McCain campaign (and I'd assume any other campaign for president or House or Senate or governor), this is something that has changed dramatically in the internet age. What he described taking place made me think of the masters of rapid response, the Clinton campaign in 1992, or more to the point, how they would have fared sixteen years in the future with Gennifer Flowers' and Paula Jones' accusations. It would have been completely different than simply going on 60 Minutes prior to New Hampshire.

Needless to say, Davis seemed to conjure up a vision from the campaign's perspective of both apprehension of and flat out animosity toward new media. Honestly, you can't blame him; it made his job more difficult. But Davis did seem to echo some of the same sentiment that came out of the White House earlier this week concerning liberal bloggers*. Davis called them, "guys who don't comb their hair and work from mom's basement." [Of course, I took exception to this as a blogger. I'll let you decide my ideological persuasion. I've certainly had the liberal label thrown at me. When I asked him my strategy question later on, I introduced myself as "Josh Putnam, Visiting Assistant professor ... and blogger. And (touching my head) I'd like to think I combed my hair this morning. I have a class to teach after this." He laughed it off and said I looked good. I'm so insecure.]

But Davis went on to describe the dilemma the McCain campaign was in and what most presidential campaigns must face these days. Bloggers and their "breaking stories at 2 in the morning" were only part of it. They had a warroom of sorts set up to monitor blogs and an in-house studio to respond nationally or to a targeted media market affiliate at the drop of a hat. The big deal, though was the media pool that was with them on the Straight Talk Express or on the campaign's plane en route to the next campaign stop. Davis drew a line between the Express of 2000 and the 2008 Express; that in 2000, the insurgent campaign and the bus were a novelty worth following. As such, they career journalists following them. But in 2008, in the new era and after old guard journos of 2000 had either retired or been laid off, they were being followed by a group of folks whose "average age must have been 25" and who were "carrying these little handheld cameras."

It was this latter point that Davis stressed the most. The campaign was just not ready for the changes since 2000. Senator McCain was fine, but without make up "looked like Caspar the Friendly Ghost" or "looked a hundred years old" on the tape shot on those cameras. What compounded matters was that the Obama campaign or their surrogates would quickly "release statements after one of these videos appeared on the news/web saying 'McCain looked frail today.'"

"That really bothered me," Davis said. [All the while I had two thoughts going through my head. One serious: The 2008 campaign really had a delicate nature to it in the face of two historic candidacies. Much was made of Barack Obama's race and even though it received attention, McCain's age often took a back seat. But there really was this weird racism/ageism undertone to the race. And one not so serious: Bobby Bowden knows how McCain felt.]

So the McCain camp, Davis in particular, had a dilemma: "Ban them [the reporters]" or "spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to rip seats out of the plane and put in a small studio" so McCain could do those interviews. They chose the latter.

What all this really drove home was the idea of the standard presidential candidates are held to. It isn't falling down stairs or eating unshucked tamales anymore. No, those are things you can kinda sorta help. But age or race or weight or baldness aren't things you can help (or help easily sometimes -- Sorry Chris Christie. I tried.). It's a different era and that came through in what Rick Davis spoke about.

*"And for a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn't take this opposition, one adviser told me today those [internet left fringe] bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult." (from John Harwood at NBC, via Ta-Nehisi Coates)


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Rick Davis on Palin: VP Selection is easy when you're up 15 points, but is tough when you're down 15

This is part one in a series of posts on Rick Davis' recent visit with political science students and faculty at Wake Forest.

On Palin...
Davis mentioned that the campaign was keeping tabs on what the Democrats were doing over the summer; not necessarily in terms of their vice presidential selection, but poll position among various demographic groups. Beyond that, the McCain camp came up with a list of about 50 names that was ultimately whittled down to about 20. That was the serious list. At that point, Davis sat down with McCain with the names and the numbers and discussed the selection. Davis prefaced this by saying (I'm paraphrasing), "Because, you know, the candidate has some input, too."

To that point, the campaign seemed to be targeting possibilities that would help them sway Hillary Democrats (or are those Reagan Democrats?), but people like Joe Lieberman and Michael Bloomberg were not moving the needle in a positive direction for the Arizona senator among those folks in particular or overall. It was at this time that McCain proposed the idea of looking at women, but as Davis suggested, the reality was (and is) that there just aren't that many female Republican options. Admittedly, I was hoping during this point in the talk that Davis would name names of other Republican women considered, but all he said, in addition to the slim pickings comment, was that women in politics and business were considered. On the business front, I can't help but assume that both Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman had their names come up, but don't know how seriously either was considered.

Part of the problem for Republicans in 2008 was that it was just plain hard to run with an R next to your name unless you were representing a ruby red state or congressional district. What was vexing the McCain campaign, though, and what led them to consider a woman for the number two position on the ticket, was that they were facing a tremendous gender gap among their core of white voters. In the end the only one who significantly closed that gap (and was someone who McCain could live with) was Sarah Palin. Among those white voters, she took an approximately 40 point gender gap and shrunk it to single digits. [Something that I really wanted to ask in follow up to this point is what Davis thought about the fact that the 2012 polling done thus far has consistently shown Palin trailing her male Republican counterparts relative to Obama in terms of the gender gap. Alas, I didn't have the opportunity.]

I wouldn't say they thought her selection was a no-brainer, but their were advantages to her having been picked. Even Steve Schmidt is drawing a distinction between 2008 Palin and potential 2012 Palin; calling her potential nomination in 2012 "catastrophic," but adding just today that her selection was defensible. ["I believe to this day that had she not been picked as a vice presidential candidate, we would have never been ahead, not for one second, not for one minute, not for one hour, not for one day."] The lead Schmidt references there was something Davis touched on as well: That in national polls, McCain was ahead after the Palin pick. Now granted, that was during that unprecedented string of events from the close of the Democratic convention on Thursday night, to the introduction of Palin on Friday to the Republican convention the following week. The lead may have been due to a Palin effect, but there very likely was at least something of an interactive effect between that and the convention bounce.

The McCain folks apparently are of a mind that it was Palin and not the convention though.


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Rick Davis at Wake Forest: A Series of Postscripts

On Sunday, I solicited FHQ readers for questions to pose to Rick Davis, who was visiting campus here at Wake Forest on Tuesday. The former 2000 and 2008 McCain campaign manager had an hour to speak and field questions from political science students and faculty here and offered a unique glimpse inside the McCain operation.

I'll skip over his prefatory comments, which focused on his past in the College Republicans in Alabama in the late 1970s. Those points were really only interesting for the description of his agree-to-disagree relationship with Karl Rove that found its origin not in the McCain-Bush divisions of the 2000 Republican nomination race (and infamously South Carolina), but in their College Republican days (Rove in Washington, Davis in Alabama).

Again, that was informative, but the meat of the event was the Q&A session. And believe it or not the "Palin question" did not lead. I was shocked; Davis was too, and said so when he got the second question, which happened to be about the former Alaska governor. One thing that was clear was that Davis has certainly spent some time around politicians. His answers were long, debate-style walls of talking points. I don't particularly have a problem with that (As I said, it was an informative hour.), but it had the effect of limiting the number of questions that were asked in a short period of time. In the end, beggars can't be choosers, though.

What did Davis have to say? I'll have a series of posts up throughout the day dealing with several different topics with which Davis dealt. Up first? Sarah Palin.


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Rick Davis

FHQ Readers:

John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, Rick Davis, is going to be on campus here at Wake on Tuesday. He's going to meet with the political science faculty and some students while he's here. I thought I'd give all our regular contributors a chance to pose a question that I can then attempt to have answered. If you have any questions about the 2008 presidential campaign, especially the approach of the McCain camp, just drop a note in the comments section below. Oh, and I'm guessing the Sarah Palin question will be asked, so you may want to go in a different direction.

Thanks,
Josh


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