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The Spectacle Blog
In recent weeks, we have seen Mitt Romney win Illinois and then Rick Santorum take Louisiana by a wide margin. Tomorrow, Romney is all but certain to win Maryland and the District of Columbia while he’s likely to carry Wisconsin. This raises a question I see a lot in the comments section: Why do blue states get to pick the Republican nominee?
Take a look at the remaining primary calendar. The states that look best for Romney are mostly blue. Santorum’s best remaining opportunities remain in red states, with the significant exception of his home state of Pennsylvania. This leads many people to ask: Who cares if Romney wins states that Republicans are never going to carry in November?
I understand the sentiment, but there are a few things in play here. First, the GOP delegate allocation process already does reward states with a recent history of voting Republican. Perhaps that formula could be modified or the rewards increased, but states that voted for John McCain in 2008 or elected a Republican governor since then get a boost from their GOP voting habits.
Second, even in blue states with open primaries most of the Republican primary voters will end up supporting the eventual nominee. They are red voters within blue states. In some cases, like California, they can be rather conservative. Do we want to punish or disenfranchise Republicans who live in the wrong states? Third, how would you handle swing states? Should Ohio’s primary have counted for significantly less after voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996? What about Florida after it went for Barack Obama in 2008? West Virginia wasn’t a reliably red state until George W. Bush, voting for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and then for Clinton twice.
It seems to me that too heavy-handed an approach to swing states that recently voted Democratic would make their Democratic voting habits a self-fulfilling prophecy. And shouldn’t the party’s goal be to make more states Republican? California once regularly voted for Republican presidential candidates while most Southern states did not. The idea is to be a national, not regional party.
Finally, a sweep of the early red and purple states — Iowa, South Carolina, and Florida — by a single conservative candidate may have hobbled Romney’s candidacy long before the larger blue states even voted.
View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/04/02/red-states-blue-states
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Les| 4.2.12 @ 2:32PM
Obama won mostly states he later lost in November. In the western states,like Utah and Idaho,he won because they have less unions and blue collar workers and more green types. He won southern states because of the heavy black %.
Hillary won California,New York,Massaachussetts,New Jersey and all the big Democrat states,except for my state of Illinois his own state.
Bill| 4.2.12 @ 2:38PM
GOP must win FL, OH, VA, and PA, in order to win in 2012.
gearjammer| 4.3.12 @ 11:19AM
Must move to center. Pro life extremism in VA might have killed all chances alreadyl. But conservatives feel great about themselves by standing by their sacred principles. I am sure mandatory vaginal probes will one of our platform " planks". Just walk right off the plank why don't ya.
RJ| 4.2.12 @ 3:16PM
The delegate formula is similar to reapportionment. There are an unlimited number of ways of doing it, none can be proved best and ultimately it comes down to judgement and interest. The goal of most party members is to get the candidate who has the best chance of delivering on their platform issues and win the general election.
Probably the most unlikely major party nominee was Abraham Lincoln, a single term Congressman who had lost two Senate races. One of his strengths was that the GOP delegates were strongly motivated to win the general election and conventional wisdom had it that four swing states would decide the election, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Once the Lincoln forces fought off a favorite son competitor and won Illinois Republican support, Indiana decided to join its fellow Westerners. Lincoln aides made a deal to secure Pennsylvania's support and New Jersey decided to join the other swing states. It worked. I hope we can do as well today.
Bill| 4.2.12 @ 5:20PM
R-Resolute
O-Organization
M-Money
N-Natural
E-Energetic
Y-You asked for me
You welcome!
Al Adab| 4.2.12 @ 7:18PM
The national polarization manifests itself state by state although in reality it is mostly urban against non-urban areas. Some states are controlled by one or two big cities while the rest of the state votes differently. The big city machines still exist and can deliver. That is why a liberal republican can claim "wins" in blue states that are not even in play this November.
What such a situation bodes for the Conservative Movement is anybodys guess at this point. The old establishmentarian, accomodationist wing of the GOP continues to dominate even though the party only enjoys success when, as in 80, 94, Conservatives preponderate. That wing has led us to defeat time and again going back to Tom Dewey.
The underlying question is about the legitimacy of the administrative social-welfare state itself. Does it really matter if the GOP promises to manage it better or if the DEM continues to grow it with help from the REP? A distinction without a difference perhaps.
Doug| 4.2.12 @ 7:33PM
And looking at actual election results for the last 30 years shows how bad it is for conservatives to let blue states pick moderates for national offices.
A better solution? I'm not sure. Maybe setting the primary calendar so that red/purple states vote early and blue states later. Either that or just go to 4 "Super Tuesday" votes that cover all "57" states.
Al Adab| 4.2.12 @ 7:43PM
OR... instead of having a plethora of popularity contests subject to the vagaries of media ads and coverage, we could let State party leaders in convention choose delegates to a national convention which would select the nominee.
Occam's Tool| 4.2.12 @ 10:22PM
Sorry, California should have a minimal delegate count, and Alabama should have a much larger delegate count. The biggest delegate counts should go to swing states. This could have been worked out in late 2010.
RJ| 4.3.12 @ 2:35AM
We got some bad news today in California. They announced the candidates on the ballot for Senator who will run against Diane Feinstein. We have a new system in place where all the candidate are in a single non-party primary and the top two go to the finals (if no one gets 50%). This year, no publicly recognized Republican is on the ballot. Last year against Barbara Boxer, we had three. I wish we had at least one this year. Even former Congressman Tom Campbell would be an improvement.
So who knows, maybe we won't even be able to fill the delegate list.
Simon Templar| 4.3.12 @ 1:04AM
Why do blue states get to pick the Republican nominee?
Because this is what the GOP wants, no conservative will ever be elected or nominated. How else can you account for this obvious sham and shell game?
Let us a review shall we? Follow the bouncing ball.
They start the nomination campaign nearly a year before the actual election and spread out the state elections with blue states first.
They try to wrap it up with the first state, Iowa as the litmus test, unless the conservative wins.
They stack the delegate counts up front in these first states to go so the first out of the gate and the squishy establishment candidate has the momentum. The idea is to allow as much conservative splitting of votes that can be mustered with a broad number of candidates.
They hold a series of debates whereby the moderators are the MSM elitist liberals. These debates continue ad-nausea with emphasis put on the gaffes of those most conservative and with questions designed to make the Republican candidates tear into each other and appear like buffoons. The so-called conservative media along with the MSM play up these mishaps and mistakes further damaging their public images.
As the MSM media each week witness the rise of popularity of one candidate over the others, that candidate becomes the target of a smear campaign which the conservative media echo and throw their hands up over. This serves to damage the fund raising ability of this candidate to essentially zero. Candidate shortly after announces end of campaign. Of course, it is always a hoot and a giggle to have at least one candidate in the mix that is running against the party itself, conservatives in general, and continues to kick it in the shins all the way through to the convention. He is, of course, NEVER asked to drop out as he serves the self destructive tendencies of conservatives and republicans in general.
The field is essentially whittled down by the MSM foremost but with the cooperation of the conservative media sycophants with their particular political biases, fears, and agendas.
Talk begins shortly after this point about the need to pick a moderate candidate that will appeal to the moderates, and behold there just happens to be one left standing that essentially has been quite and under the radar up till now.
The candidates are encouraged to inflict as much public image damage on each other that is possible. Particular interest is directed at the conservative candidates. The conservative media comes in to assist stoking the furnace.
Now, if all goes as planned, the squish is doing very well and beating what is left by a small margin but winning nevertheless. This where the panic now sets in and is encouraged by the conservative media and pundits. Polls by now are showing the results of 9 months of negative campaigning, chaos, off message politics, and circular firing squads producing poll results showing the incumbent now ahead by a significant margin. Exhaustion now sets in, and republican voters want to go back to sleep and forget any of this ever happened. But they can not. So, resignation and falling in line begins.
Mr. Inevitable for this year is nominated and now its on to the general election two months before it is to actually happen. The mad rush, prayers, teeth grinding, hope and prayers, resurgent activism, depression, in-activism, and a mixture of insanity starts.
Of course, all this leads up to the BIG DEBATE where all of our futures are place on the black jack table. Everything we got is now riding on Mr. Inevitable. Of course, this debate once again will be televised and moderated by the same state run media the incumbent controls.
I think you know or should know how this sad story ends, so I will not belabor it.
Great system we got here, eh?
Oh, I forgot the best part after it is all over; we scratch our heads and wonder what went wrong, how can this be? We then pony up for the next round and do it all over again.