Overhauling the GOP primary calendar: Will it work?

It feels like just yesterday that long nomination fights seemed cool. Not anymore, apparently. So how come the 2012 primaries didn't propel Mitt Romney to the presidency - and is there anything a national party really can do these days to control the process?

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RNC Chairman calls for June convention, fewer debates

Those questions are on full view this week as the Republican National Committee unveiled ideas for strengthening their nomination process that include moving up their convention, holding fewer debates, and a shorter primary season, as reported in the party's review of the 2012 election and described by RNC chairman Reince Priebus on "Face the Nation."

Just before the 2012 cycle, you'll recall, Republicans were charting a very different path: they'd taken steps to make the primary season last longer, having scrapped their traditional winner-take-all system - win a state; get all the delegates; clinch a nomination fast - in favor of a proportional one that doled out delegates piecemeal, in an effort to keep the contest winding on through more states.

As we wrote at the time, that looked like a savvy way to replicate the Democrats' wildly successful 2008 contest, in which then-Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton fought through the spring but left behind Democratic registration boosts, organization and enthusiasm everywhere they went, even in red states, which in turn helped deliver wins in November. Moreover, by the time the 2008 conventions rolled around, it seemed so much had been said and vetted about Obama that the fall held few surprises. It all looked like evidence, in spite of conventional wisdom, that a long nomination fight could be good for a party.

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2012 obviously did not turn out that way for the GOP. The allocation system did indeed slow Romney's march to the nomination: after winning the Florida primary that was thought to be his firewall, Romney and Rick Santorum battled through Ohio and Wisconsin and Michigan - all of which were fall battlegrounds, too - but none of them ultimately went for the GOP in November, nor did other early states like New Hampshire, Iowa, or Nevada. Nor, in many places, did Romney even get a substantially different number of votes than John McCain had. But whether the primaries really hurt Romney that much - or just left opportunities on the table - remains an open debate.

Part of the GOP's concern today, and desire to move up the formal nomination, is that Romney was hampered by spending laws and was "defined" during that stretch by outside groups and the Obama campaign, in much the same way other challengers to incumbents (Bob Dole in 1996, John Kerry in 2004) have also found the spring and summer, pre-convention period inhospitable.

Nationally, at least, the evidence for this in 2012 isn't that clear.

Romney had underwater favorable ratings in the CBS News Poll near the start of primary season in January 2012, 21 percent favorable to 35 percent unfavorable. From there his favorable numbers actually improved a bit overall, while his negatives didn't get much worse. It is, however, impossible to know what might have been, without that primary dynamic, or how high Romney's favorable rating might have gone otherwise.

And those ratings never did get above water - in the November exit poll he was still seen personally unfavorably by a narrow margin, even after the fall campaign. (There was an interesting discussion on the role of campaign ads, and that counterfactual, at Monkeycage, as well.)

But the primary process can also reveal issues and battle test candidates in ways that can be used - or used against them - in the fall. And what really matters is whether or not the debates within the party find alignment with the wider electorate.

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[stevehamilton858]

The current GOP is the worse run political party in America's history. The party does not have a CEO class leader, nor a management team, nor a management process. It bumps from one PR disaster to another. It has either insurrection or anarchy within its Tea Party ranks. It very foolishly declared war on a sitting president with Mitch McConnell's stupid "my number one priority" comment, and now the president is counter-attacking, as any good military leader would; if the GOP doesn't figure out how to get its act together by the time the clocks turn back this fall, the GOP will become a "Rump Party" by 2014, and will be in American History books at least through the end of this century as an example of how to ruin a once great party.

[marychgo]

The GOP needs to give up a lot more than primaries if it hopes ever to win again.
Republicans need to give up free market fundamentalism: Americans SEE that it's a religious faith (that just happens to shovel all the money to the already-rich), NOT a description of how ANY economy actually works.
Republicans need to give up patriarchy and sexism: more women vote than men...and lots of men care enough about their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters to take offense when a party consistently puts women down.
Republicans need to give up racism and xenophobia: most Americans stopped being tribal (my kind good; your kind awful) generations ago.
Republicans need to give up homophobia: EVERYONE has a friend or relative or neighbor who's gay or lesbian, and just about everyone has encountered a stereotypical "nuclear family" that's profoundly dysfunctional.
That's a lot to give up, I admit. But giving up the fairy tales you grew up with will allow you to live in the 21st century with the rest of us!

[tsigili]

Not if it infringes on the voter's choices.........which it just may.

[MTATL670]

I won't and chances are no one will believe the Republican party has changed until they have supported or proposed legislation that is Pro-woman, pro-gay, pro-middle class, pro-environment, etc. I don't see that happening anytime soon. Do you?

[FOX_PARROTS_LIE]

Changing the packaging and advertisement schedule of the GOP cereal, without changing the Monsanto deadly ingredients, will solve absolutely nothing where focus groups of Republican voters described the party as "scary, narrow- minded, out of touch, stuffy, old men."

[scruthut]

Fix it? REALLY? Fix the GOP? Burn it down. Kick the tea baggers to the curb and anyone who goes crazy you must shout them down. Get rid of the old corporation soldiers. Ha soldiers indeed. We fix this country as a whole by remembering all classes and not just a percentage. Stop trying to fix the vote through registration or redistricting. Respect female rights and gays and every American. Cut the greedy and cut them deep. Drop the trickle down myth as it is a scam. No I do not think it is possible the GOP is toast.

[antoniof123]

It doesn't matter when they move or how they move.

IT IS THE MESSAGE THAT AMERICA DOESN'T WANT.

They used to have brute force because their rhetoric sounded good, but when Americans realized that it was just that and it didn't tie they lost voters. Then when they refused to listen they lost more. Then when they moved further to the right and started calling everyone who disagreed with them traitors it was the end.

The next election and maybe the one after that will most likely not be pretty for them. You can not keep hate alive people see through that very quickly.