Virginia GOP: Time to Abolish Nominating Conventions

Both primaries and conventions have their pluses and minuses.

It is true that, in the absence of partisan voter registration, the only way to identify your party's voters is if they show up to vote on primary day.

But because primary turnout is typically so low -- even in Charlottesville, where I live and where general election turnout tops 78 percent, primaries produce less than 10 percent (and sometimes less than 5 percent) of voter turnout -- the lists you can subsequently glean from the voter rolls are more likely to be lists of potential activists and volunteers rather than "voters" in general.

That is, of course, a good thing in itself.  But it doesn't help you create lists for use in GOTV in the fall.  It just tells you who your basest base is, the people who you can be certain will turn out for your candidate in November.  (In Charlottesville, the Virginia February presidential primary resulted in about 800 votes for Republican candidates, even after McCain had secured the nomination.  We know those 800 voters are diehards -- now we just have to get them involved in the party.)

I just returned from the Election Journal web site (see comment above), where a Democratic activist says on video that "this is an unusual time of year for a primary."  Virginia has always held its primaries in June.  If a party activist doesn't know this, what does it say about how much attention the average voter is paying?

While, in theory, primary election campaigns are good opportunities to test messages and mobilize volunteers, in practice it doesn't work out that way.  The audience for the messages is too small to be useful, and volunteers generally pass on the chance to work on campaigns until after Labor Day (or, more and more, after Columbus Day).

The best argument for having nominating conventions, especially large ones like the Virginia GOP had in 1994 and 2001 (for instance), is that they provide unparalleled opportunities for (1) networking with fellow activists; (2) meeting candidates and potential future candidates face-to-face so they can be compared and evaluated; (3) drumming up excitement among the troops who will be manning the phone banks (in the Internet age, I use this metaphorically) and going door-to-door on behalf of candidates. 

They also offer opportunities for training and comparing notes with people from other jurisdictions who have faced similar (or dissimilar) campaigns in the recent past.

I'll agree that small conventions -- such as the one attended by 3,000 GOP stalwarts on May 30-31 -- serve a smaller purpose and may be less advantageous than larger conventions.  But party conventions are a better use of resources (especially money) than primaries, which require a lot of wasted effort aiming at the general voter pool.  (Since delegates to conventions are known weeks ahead of time, campaigns can target their efforts much more narrowly and thus more effectively.  The Gilmore people knew I was in their corner, so they didn't send me a flyer every other day, as the Marshall campaign did.  But to Marshall's people, I was an unknown -- except the fact I was registered as a delegate to the GOP convention.)  Well-run conventions can also turn a profit that can benefit the party's coffers; primaries are all about expenditures.

As I say, both methods of selecting candidates have their merits, but when it comes down to it, I prefer conventions.

And that does not stem from my position as an election official who prefers to have a free day instead of working from 4:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on the second Tuesday in June.

but Republicans in Virginia are funny: they don't want Democrats choosing their nominees.

It's a matter of intregity, and I am fundamentally opposed to allowing people from the other side of the aisle to pick my party's nominees.  I think less of you, Patrick, for having done so, and that's why I very rarely comment on the other party's nominating processes.  I think they're entitled to their own choices, without Republican interference, and I would appreciate the same courtesy, thank you very much.

As for "real" primaries, "real" primaries are those in which the electorate is limited to members of the Party, not those who just happen to show up with no investment in --- or, possibly, in opposition to --- the principles which guide the Party (and yes, we do have them; you might not see them too frequently in Alexandria, but we do).

As for your premises, they're interesting.  And completely wrong.  I could've sworn Virginia is considered "in play" --- I think that perception is incorrect, but so be it --- because George Allen managed to blow it, and because we've had two Democrat governors.  Funny, but I could've sworn that our last four statewide nominees (Allen; Kilgore; Bolling; and McDonnell) were chosen by primaries, not conventions, and two of them were victorious.

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