Private Parties, Public Costs

Fellow Bassist: Mike Huckabee, a potential 2012 GOP presidential nominee, busts out some riffs!

Governor Chris Gregoire and Secretary of State Sam Reed are supporting a bill that would cancel the 2012 presidential primary election. This is a good idea, because the primary doesn't do much for the money--about $10 million--that it costs our cash-strapped state.


States started holding primaries in the early 20th century as a reform to make nominations accessible to more people than just party insiders. Even though most states administer and fund their presidential primaries, nominations are essentially the affairs of private organizations. The parties use the public vote totals to allocate delegates according to their party rules.


Washington state didn't have a presidential primary election until 1992. The backstory: In 1988, Democratic activists nominated Jesse Jackson, and the GOP nominated Pat Robertson. Since so few people participated in the caucuses, the most committed party members dominated, choosing candidates from polar ends of the spectrum. This prompted a successful ballot initiative establishing presidential primaries in Washington.


But this didn't mean the end of the caucus. Recall the bit about the private organizations. The state can't force parties to comply with the primary. Our state's Democratic party has always ignored the primary ballot results and kept the caucus results. In 2008, the GOP allocated half its delegates from the primary and the other half from a caucus. This meant that the primary was little more than a beauty contest. However meaningless the ballots were, the cost to the state was still high.


Next year will not be like 2008, when the race for the Oval Office was wide open. Back then, Democrats had an especially exciting contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The race was so competitive that candidates were reaching far and wide for votes. I remember being in Portland and hearing an Obama commercial on the rock radio station before Oregon's May primary. I remember thinking to myself, "Are we still deciding on candidates in May? I thought this primary stuff was already over. "
But it wasn't. Oregon and Montana are among the last states on the presidential primary election calendar. (Washington's "non-binding" primary was in February.)

It's unusual to have a nomination contest go on into May or June. The Clinton/Obama rivalry wasn't the only dynamic driving things; Democratic Party rules use a proportional system to allocate the delegates at its national convention. 
Republicans used different rules, with a mostly winner-take-all delegate allocation. In 2008, Sen. John McCain won the most votes in many early GOP primaries, and his delegates from those states stacked up fast. Democrats, on the other hand, divided their delegates proportionately, based on vote totals in each state. And that's why rockers in Portlandia got pitched by the Obama primary campaign all the way into May.

Who wants to bet $10 million that Obama will be the Democratic Party nominee in 2012? Democrats will likely caucus again, but don't expect the crammed town hall-type events of '08. While some progressives grumble, it's hard to imagine any credible candidate successfully challenging Obama in the Democratic primary.

Grand Obama Party

There's the Democratic Party, then there's Organizing for America (OFA). This is the president's political operation. No nomination process here--it's all Obama, all the time. It's been recently reported that Obama could raise more than $1 billion for 2012. He raised $750 million in '08. With a billion bucks in its projected piggy bank, perhaps OFA could pitch in for the Democrats' portion of our state's primary cost?




Socialized Nominations?

Or how about our friends over in the GOP and the Tea Party--perhaps they'd like to split that same $10 million bill? Conservatives like to think of themselves as thrifty, and should welcome the elimination of the presidential primary, right? Instead of having a state apparatus fund and administer nominations for a private organization, conservatives could instead innovate! Technology is already playing a huge role in conservative grassroots activism. In addition, Republican Party rules regarding presidential nominations have been changed to incorporate a proportional allocation of delegates--so there's another shot in the arm to an already energized group.

It's true that the state makes it very convenient for people to participate in either major party's primary presidential nomination process. (The two major parties sure don't, with their elaborate caucus rituals!) Nor can I argue that primaries are meaningful in Washington--they're not. Good luck to Democrats who want to nominate someone other than Obama. And it's really none of my business whom the GOP nominates for president. I say, let's keep the $10 million instead of holding the presidential primary.

(Here's a recent article I've written about Precinct Committee Officer elections in Washington. More sexy stuff!)

British Columbia Conservatives are all over it!

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