Washblog

I know that there aren't very many people watching this blog from the other side of the valley, (Hi Stephan), but I'm curious how the Republican National Committee is responding to the Washington GOP decision to split their allocation.

Anyone know?

by chadlupkes on Wed Jun 27, 2007 at 07:59:18 PM PST

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   Are quite clear. And the same day caucus/primary wasn't (isn't) gonna happen.
  And in Washington, there is no way I couldn't vote in a primary in the morning and attend a caucus in the evening even if they were on the same day.
  MY proposal, sent to the party and posted on here Washblog  would have qualified, but the powers that are choose otherwise.

  I currently hold no standing above PCO with the party, but I'm planning to attend the meeting for awhile. Maybe I sill have standing with ARC. I know I have standing from my previous record to at least be in the neighborhood :)

Dave Gibney Pullman

by gibney on Wed Jun 27, 2007 at 08:09:54 PM PST

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Towards the end of the conversation, the Washington state representative is attempting to find a way that Washington can come back to the committee with an acceptable plan, but he quickly rolls over on trying to find a way to have both the primary and the caucuses respected.

The whole problem here is you're indeed coming in on the end of the conversation.  Scattered throughout are references to many previous discussions.  David MacDonald (the only person in the room from Washington, and the only vote in support of Washington having a dual system) had tried multiple times to get the DNC to drop its opposition to the dual system.  I think it's misrepresenting things to say he just rolled over; what you're seeing here is the final exhaustion.

Even reading this transcript it's clear he put up a pretty good fight -- noting that the 3-week delay problem is a bullshit argument and has never made a difference in the 25 years he's been watching things.  But they just rolled straight over that and went on about how it was horribly unfair to the voters (as if forcing people try to get to a primary AND a caucus in a single day is somehow more fair) and the candidates (as if the candidates don't do things on their own schedules anyway) and motherhood and apple pie.  

There comes a point where one realizes that one's arguemnt is just not going to fly and further back-and-forth just wasn't going to do anything,  So he tries to nail them down as requiring a single system, and they're too chickenshit to do it, but they make clear anyway they're going to vote it down if it's not a single system.

Texas is grandfathered because of tradition.  They pretty much came out and said just that.  Same reason Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first.  It's not fair but that's just the way it is.

(...I ran into this same thing when I was going around trying to argue the committeefolk against the precinct 15% rule. "You cannot use Texas as an argument for anything.  Their system is grandfathered.  End of story."  Luckily, I had a whole mess of other arguments, but still... very annoying...)

At one point a member of the committee (on page 18 of the pdf above) even says that because the Texas plan allocates delegates through both a caucus and a primary "it would be harder for us to argue with you" if Washington somehow brought the primary and the caucuses together on the same day.

yeah, it'll be harder to argue, but they'll argue it anyway.

by wrog on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 12:03:53 AM PST

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the process -- how we ended up here.

This looks to me like David McDonald made all reasonable effort to get the committee to approve a dual caucus/primary system.   Unless there's some appeal process that wasn't pursued....?

The committee members refer to rules and, in particular, to rules 12.A, 3, 4, 22.A, that they think a combination caucus and primary would violate.  Do you know if those rules are available for reading anywhere?

This is a very interesting post.  Thanks.

by noemie maxwell on Thu Jun 28, 2007 at 09:14:49 AM PST

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--in our delegate selection process, why?  If we want the biggest money noise machine to select part of our delegation, why don't we just look at the 12/31/07 FEC report and award our delegates accordingly?

by eridani on Sun Jul 01, 2007 at 08:25:48 PM PST

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