RNC Recommends Major Calendar Reforms
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD -- The RNC is likely to make radical changes to its presidential selection process at this summer's semi-annual meeting, pushing back the date on which the first states can hold their nominating contests.
A temporary delegate selection committee will recommend allowing IA, NH, SC and NV to hold contests in a pre-window period that begins in Feb., a month later than the '08 process began. Other states may begin holding their contests in March, rather than in Feb.
The delegate selection plan will be made public before the summer meeting, planned for early Aug., sources in the closed-door meeting told Hotline OnCall.
But, in a significant change, any state that chooses to hold a nominating contest before April must award their delegates on an at least partly proportional basis. In '08, states that held contests during the nominating window could award all their delegates to the winner of the plurality of votes; that system allowed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to take all 57 delegates from FL even though he won the state with just 36% of the vote.
The new nominating system maintains traditional spots for early states like NH, which will still hold the first contest, and IA, which has the first caucuses. SC will hold the first-in-the-South contest it covets, with NV maintaining a post it first held in the '08 cycle.
"It's as God intended it," joked ex-NH Gov. John H. Sununu, chairman of the NH GOP, after the presentation.
Moving the beginning of the nominating contest back has been a priority for prominent members of both the DNC and the RNC. RNC members have worked closely with DNC member James Roosevelt, the chairman of the party's rules committee, to jointly move the process to later dates. That, both parties hope, will prevent rampant campaigning over the winter holidays.