Comments on: Want Sarah Palin to Speak to Your Group?

By: steve vaillancourt

steve vaillancourt — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:10:31 +0000

Tim is right about primaries; either party could opt to close it but what kind of message would that send to 40 percent of UND voters?
We don’t want you in our party!
A sure losing strategy.
Which is why Tim is right again. Expect no changes in the system. The one change I’d like to see is allowing parties to fill vacant positions…that smacks of Big Brotherism and takes away power of individuals in favor of the collective.
But neither party wants to see that changed, FOR SURE.

By: TimothyHorrigan

TimothyHorrigan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:09:43 +0000

I seriously doubt that any major changes will be made to the primary election process. Both parties have a vested interest in maximizing participation in both the state and presidential primaries.

The way I read the election laws (and this is just my personal opinion and not anyone else’s & please hire a lawyer and/or consult the NH elections division before taking any action) RSA 659:14 allows any party to close its primary. Actually the statute technically allows parties to OPEN their primaries to undeclared voters: a closed primary is the default (which explains why only Undeclareds can switch their party affiliation on primary election day.) Both parties have opted to open their primaries.

RSA 652:11 states that a party can only hold a primary if their candidates gt 4% of the vote for Governor and/or US Senator at the last biennial General Election. Otherwise, the party and its candidates has to file petitions (I won’t cite all the RSA’s related to that process) to get on the ballot.

It is a little unclear whether or not an eligible party MUST participate in the state primary, or whether its candidates can file petitions instead. I doubt that this well ever be cleared up, since the primary is a hell of a good deal for the parties: the taxpayers pay for the whole election process, saving the cost of holding a nominating convention.

It is actually to the candidates’ interest to have the official nomination later rather than earlier, thanks to campaign finance laws. If the nomination comes later, you can use non-General election moneys (which have less stringent restrictions attached to them) later in the election cycle. That is one reason why the two major parties hold their conventions around Labor Day to crown Presidential nominees who were actually chosen in the spring, or even earlier if possible. (Even Obama vs. Clinton II, which was an exceptionally close race with an unusually stubborn and well-financed second-place finisher, was wrapped up by mid-June— which was technically still during springtime.)

By: dbnh77

dbnh77 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:48:08 +0000

Screw Huckabee. He’s a dirty Arkansas sleazeball just like another guy we all know and hate.

I’ve seen my share of polls too and most of them show Romney as being the best chance the GOP has against Bowing Barry in 2012. Romney has an even longer list of endorsements from fellow GOPers.

Huckabee and Palin need to do us all a favor and get the f— out of Mitt Romney’s way.

By: Dennis Acton

Dennis Acton — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:39:10 +0000

I’d say the first change made to our primary should be to move it to June instead of September. Thats gives candidates plenty of time in the winter and spring win over the party leading up to a mid-june primary. Winning candidate then have the summer to reunite the party and build a fall campaign.

Right now every primary candidate must endure a long, expensive summer burning through cash that would have much more value in the general election.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:43:29 +0000

Yea how could Huckabee win, he only polls better against Obama than any other candidate.
http://www.gop12.com/2009/11/paul-surprises-in-poll-against-obama.html

and he polls best in the primary, has the lowest un-favorability and the highest favorability
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124097/huckabee-romney-palin-see-most-republican-support-12.aspx

He is actively supporting candidates in SC (Bauer the next Governor), IA(Vander Plaats the next Governor), and FL(Rubio) even the club for growth is playing catch up to Huck in FL

Hey but nobody can win with high poll numbers and friends in high places.

By: TimothyHorrigan

TimothyHorrigan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:26:16 +0000

I am not saying Romney might not win the nomination. I’m just saying his status as a frontrunner has nothing to do with his appeal to the voters. The voters were profoundly immune to his charms last time. It was the media, the pundits, and the party apparatchiks who anointed him as a frontrunner. It wasn’t the general public. He has not shown much curb appeal to the voters: he has only won one election in his whole life, and once he was finally elected he proved to be a fairly unpopular and highly ineffective governor of a certain northeastern state whose name he scrupulously never mentions (even though he still lives there.)

I would say that neither Huckabee nor Romney has much chance of winning in 2012, although Romney is somewhat less unlikely than Huckabee.

By: steve vaillancourt

steve vaillancourt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:29:19 +0000

Be careful what you wish for…the oldest and wisest admonition known to man or beast.

By: Thom Simmons

Thom Simmons — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:54:18 +0000

Matt, a closed primary could put the GOP on life support in this state. Closed primaries mean, realistically, that the far right would control the process, un’bothered’ by moderates. The resulting candidates would be too extreme to elect in a state-wide election, and republican moderates would be forced into the ‘other’ party or into the great independent wasteland.

By: steve vaillancourt

steve vaillancourt — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:19:36 +0000

Matt,what you say is true in the ideal world, but we don’t live in the ideal world. We live in the world where it’s difficult enough to get independents to turn out to vote now; this would add needless complications, and lead to absolute gridlock at polling places with mass confusion come January 2012 (or December 2011). We should be in the business of making it easier for voters, not for parties! Especially when, despite Rush Limbaugh’s best efforts to screw the Dems last time, there’s virtually no evidence that the screwing held.
The arguments you make have been made before the Election Law Committee often and only a few partisans in either party so far have thought the benefits outweight the problems. I agree with Vis. All voters are paying for primaries, and it’s multo dollars–parties don’t pay for these primaries, so they have no right to close them off from all the people, and this jiggering things around by constantly going in and out of parties is just too cumbersome for the minimal good it would do. Conservatives who want less govt spending should be concerned about the cost to local cities and towns in employing clerks to do all this totally unnecessary work with voter checklists.

By: Matt Suermann

Matt Suermann — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:36:28 +0000

Steve,

For the sake of argument lets say the state closes the primary to only registered partisans, with a deadline to change party registration several weeks before the primary-similar to what it is now-and also have the ability to . Wouldn’t a new part of the campaign’s responsibilities/tactics be to convince their voters to make sure they have the proper registration?

Already U’s cease to be U’s once they pull an R or D ballot and in the eyes of the checklist become a “member” of that party. Granted many revert back to being a U before they exit the polls, and many do take the extra step to go back to being an Undeclared voter. Many however don’t and I would argue these people may be helping the NHDP in padding their registration edge in the state to some extent.

Would this be something that could work, in the end they aren’t being disenfranchised just know that they have to make a choice, like the partisans in the state? Yes I understand that part of the mystique of the Undeclared voter is that they often pick their candidate, and which ballot to pull while standing in line to vote.

Grant,
I’m also pretty sure states, I think including SC, which have the parties run their primaries also charge fairly steep ballot access fees to pay for the right to appear on the ballots. Think tens of thousands of dollars per candidate.