The Washington Secretaryt of State has announced the final decisions on the date of the primary and what the political parties have determined will be the outcome.
The Washington State Democratic Party Central Committee decided not to use the results of Washington's 2008 Presidential Primary to allocate their delegates to their national convention. The Washington State Democratic Party Central Committee met on April 28, 2007 in Bellingham.The Washington State Republican Party State Committee decided to allocate 51% of their delegates to their national convention based off the results of the state's Presidential Primary. The Washington State Republican Party State Committee met on June 2, 2007 in Yakima.
Is the fix already in?
In Florida, Howard Dean is shrinking the number of delegates from Florida by half. This article claims that it is because they moved the primary to March. But is that really the reason? Washington state moved theirs to February 19 so the rationale does not seem to be consistent. What other reason could you have for removing delegates other than disregarding the public's vote?
On the other hand, this blog has a very interesting take on the strategy:
It’s simple. Their Party leaders did the smart thing and kept their nomination process to Democrats. 100% of their delegates will be determined by Democrat Caucuses. So when the Primary comes around they will be free to control the Republican side. THERE IS NO REASON FOR DEMOCRATS TO VOTE ON THE DEMOCRAT SIDE IN THE PRIMARY (since it won’t effect the outcome). BUT THEY CAN CONTROL 51% OF THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION VOTES from our state.
So the democrats want to control their own delegates and the republican delegates since Washington allows Democrats and Republicans to vote in the primaries.
3 comments:
Actually there are a number of states who don't use the primaries as means of determining delegate allocation. I'm not sure that's all bad for the Paul campaign. If Paul supporters figure out how delegates are chosen (oftentimes elected at the state conventions in May or June), then a grassroots organization ought to be able to "infiltrate" (for lack of a better term), or "stack the deck" to get Paul supporters elected as delegates. Many county conventions are poorly attended throughout the country--if you get a few activist Paulites there, they could determine who is going to the state convention, and if the convention is bound by the primary results, those delegates could elect Paul delegates to the state convention. Not purely democratic, of course, but party nomination processes rarely have been.
In the case of WA, it looks like the democrats are out smarting the GOP in that they've freed their voting bloc to pick the most liberal GOP candidate. That may work to RP's advantage but htey also might pick who they think will fare the worst. In a GOP vs DNC general election where you have RP or Hillary, RP wins in a landslide. The public knows they can't trust the Democrat nominee to end the war.
"pick who they think will fare the worst"
Of course that sort of assumes that the average Democrat engages in strategic voting in those open primary states--and that the primary actually makes a difference in who gets convention delegates. Either way, Washington seems like it might be a new target of opportunity for the Paul campaign--enough Democratic voters might be persuaded to vote for Paul (not everyone is as savvy as you and I knowing that Paul could whip Hillary), on the grounds that he's the longshot (e.g., keep Fred Thompson or Rudy--one of the "strong candidates" out of Hillary's way), giving 51% of the delegates to Paul--and then the rest of the delegates are up for grabs--which Paul could snag with a strong grassroots effort in the move up to the state convention (he's got some strong Meet Up groups operating out there). I actually have come around to the notion that open primaries and beauty contest primaries (like here in Nebraska) could really be a boon for RP, allowing him to snag delegates outside of the party establishment.
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