Republicans moving to overhaul 2016 primary process

This is hilarious.  Rather than adapt their message to reality or simply be less crazy, the GOP has decided to condense their primary process so that the views that they must espouse in order to win the primary don't "come back to haunt them" in a general election.


http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/11/politics/rnc-2016-changes/index.html?hpt=hp_t2


A few interesting notes:

In a series of closed-door meetings since August, handpicked members of the Republican National Committee have been meeting with party Chairman Reince Priebus in Washington to hash out details of a sweeping plan to condense the nominating calendar, severely punish primary and caucus states that upend the agreed-upon voting order and potentially move the party's national convention to earlier in the summer, with late June emerging as the ideal target date

Priebus and other top party figures have made no secret of their desire to scale back the number of debates, which offered little-known candidates such as Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain a chance to shine but forced Mitt Romney, the eventual nominee, to publicly stake out a number of conservative positions that came back to haunt him in the general election.

One proposal being weighed by the RNC members would involve sanctioning a small handful of debates while penalizing candidates who participate in any nonsanctioned GOP debate by stripping them of one-third of their delegates to the national convention.

There is also a "heavy appetite" to have a say over which journalists should be allowed to moderate the debates, said one Republican familiar with the ongoing discussions.

"There is a definitely a consensus for Reince's objective to have less debates and have control over how and who we have run our debates, rather than just turning it over to X, Y or Z network and having a guy moderate who's going to just dog you for two hours," said the Republican, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive and not-yet-finalized rules changes.

To prevent other states from jumping the order and compelling the first four to move their dates even earlier as they did in 2012, any state that attempts to hold its nominating contest before March 1 would have their number of delegates to the convention slashed to just nine people or, in the case of smaller states, one-third of their delegation -- whichever number is smaller.

"It's the death penalty," said one member of the subcommittee. If Florida violates RNC rules and holds its primary in February, its 99-member delegation would all but vanish.

Democrats  have proposed and/or made changes in the past as well.  I don't think this is big news.

Is this only an issue when pubs do it?

       

To PKR and NEKO       

It is a good strategy. It got ugly in 2012. It made EVERYBODY look stupid. Issue oriented debate which is limited to 3-5 would get the message out without making candidates look like fools. Moving the convention up is brilliant. If you are going to have a mean and contested primary, it is best to get it over with as soon as possible.

In the end the platform, and real legislative proposals for positive median income growth and support for the middle class will get the Reagan Democrats back on board, but if the shills for special interests and the crazies continue to control the platform.......you could have one debate, and move the convention to May and it will not do any good.