RNC's Calendar Fight Could Be Chaotic

In another universe, this might be the top story out of the Republican National Convention: the full convention has essentially given a 15-person committee a blank slate to redraw the party's primary calendar in 2012.

The committee will be filled by appointees; the party chairman gets to seat most of them, and others will come from regional caucuses. The only operating guideline: preserve the special status of New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries. Caucuses can come earlier with no penalty because they don't select or bind delegates; they merely select delegates to conventions that pick delegates.

Dig a little deeper, and an interesting scenario emerges. Grassroots activists have generally held significant sway over the primary calendar through the party's conventions. But since the convention, under the firm hand of the McCain campaign, has centralized scheduling authority in the RNC, activists are angry.  The campaign thinks that if they win, they control the process and the rule. It is not clear that they have considered the impact of their actions if they lose. The new rule benefits the insiders, not either the grassroots activists or the mavericks.

The 15-person commission will recommend its calendar in 2010. There'll be an up or down vote by membership of the RNC.  The thought is that Democrats will also be setting their calendars at the same time, and the two parties might make nice and schedule primaries together.

That's unlikely. States pay for primaries. In order to change their date, state legislatures have to pass a new law. The RNC committee isn't beholden to state legislatures' decisions. If it sets the New York primary for March 5 and New York state sets its primary for Feb 5, the New York Republican Party has two options. It can either fund its own primary on March 5, accept the Feb. 5 primary with a tough penalty, or convene an alternate delegate selection process like a caucus or a convention. Many states will probably choose the later courses of action because they're cheaper and more popular with party activists. Fewer primaries translate into a more conservative electorate.

The point of the RNC rules is to make the committee about running the party and no turning it into a vehicle for any particular campaign or battleground for a presidential campaign. This rule reverses that precedent.