GOP Punishes 5 States

[Darth Fanboy]

Can't believe I haven't seen anything else on here about this.

GOP punishes 5 states for early primaries
REBELS UNDETERED BY LOSS OF DELEGATES
Associated Press
Article Launched: 11/09/2007 01:37:16 AM PST


WASHINGTON - Rebelling Republicans in five states will push ahead with early nominating contests, undeterred by party leaders' decision Thursday to punish them by excluding half of their convention delegates.

Seeking to restore order to a chaotic primary calendar, GOP Chairman Mike Duncan said New Hampshire, Florida, South Carolina, Michigan and Wyoming would lose delegates to next summer's national convention for violating party rules against holding nominating contests before Feb. 5.

"No one wants to be in a position to penalize anyone, but our rules are self-enforcing," Duncan told reporters. "They give me no options."

Iowa, which plans to hold Republican caucuses on Jan. 3, would not be penalized because, technically, the caucuses are not binding on convention delegates. Nevada, which plans to hold its caucuses on Jan. 19, would not be penalized for the same reason.

The Republican National Committee voted 121-9 Thursday to impose the penalties. Duncan, who has final say over the matter, said he would go along.

The states "were made fully aware of what the consequences would be," he said.

Nevertheless, state party leaders expressed optimism that their entire delegations would be seated, perhaps hoping the eventual nominee would restore them.

At the national convention, a committee on credentials accepts the official list of delegates in attendance, a usually perfunctory process that could become contentious.

"I remain confident that all of Michigan's 60 national delegates will be seated next year in Minneapolis-St. Paul," Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis said. "There will be much discussion in the coming months about the makeup of the national convention, including the credentialing of delegates."

There's something about this that just doesn't sit right with me, even though it doesn't directly affect me.

[SirNitram]

Michigan's primary was just nailed in court, and the Dems had punished that state(And only that one, I beleive). The court ruling may change things up for the 'punishment'.

[Balrog]

The court 'nailed' it on a technicality, not on the date, and the legislature still has time to change the unconstitutional part before the primary.

Frankly, something like this is just what is needed to nip this bullshit that states like New Hampshire are important enough to go first and set the trend.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Either they should do ALL the primaries on the same day or leave them where they are. If everyone keeps moving them up without establishing difinitive deadlines, you'll eventually have your primaries the 1st wednsday after the first monday in November, every four years.

And God help us if that happens. There HAS to be a limit, to curb the amount of time and money people spend on elections.

[Lonestar]

Can't believe I haven't seen anything else on here about this.

Look Harder

[Darth Fanboy]

Ah I see. Well perhaps the threads could be merged since the artiucle I posted updates the story?


Nice to see that Iowa is as pathetic as ever. I knew they had moved their caucus up. But Jan 3rd is just fucking stupid. Just stupid. Sort of like a little kid starving for attention saying "Hey look at me!". Since both of the big Iowa College football teams are doing terrible, there isn't anything to do in that state but cry for attention from the rest of the country.

I don't mind some staggering between states because it does force candidates to travel to more states instead of staying in just a few cities at a time. IF I were in charge though I'd chop up the country into ten chunks of five states each who would then hold their primaries/caucuses that week. This would go on for about twenty weeks beginning in Late February or early March, with each block of five states getting two weeks in between. We could go a week or 10 days if necessary. But two weeks is plenty of time to go to a region, campaign in that area, and then move on to the next after it is all said and done.