GOP Nomination Mechanics

The Republican Party hasn't really had a competitive race for the nomination since 1980 or so, so everyone's a bit rusty on how this works. Marc Ambinder explains the process and potential sources of strength for the different candidates. Helping Fred Thompson is the "bonus delegates" rule:

Thanks to a quirk in the Republican delegate allocation schema, conservative, Republican candidates have an edge. The Republican National Committee awards bonus delegates to states based on their performance in general elections. States that always vote Republican get additional delegates; states like New York that vote Democratic do not. Bonus delegates account for about 20 of the total number.

As a result, southern states where Thompson is likely to be strong are overrepresented. New York has only 30 percent more delegates than Georgia, despite the former's much larger population. The flipside, however, is that Team Giuliani has persuaded most of the states he thinks he can win to adopt winner-take-all delegate allocation rules "So if the race is down to two candidates -- Thompson and Giuliani -- Giuliani would come in second in the Southern states and receive enough delegates to maintain his advantage." The upshot of all of this is that I think you can imagine scenarios in which a minority viewpoint, like Giuliani's seamless culture of death and warmongering, could wind up securing a majority of delegates.

Comments

All my life it's been a constant of political campaigns that you make an issue of your opponent's personal history if it was unsavory or scandalous enough to merit such attention. Giuliani presents a treasure trove of such material. The list is too long to enumerate but his domestic life and business dealings and associations would have disqualified him for the Republican nomination in almost every Presidential race I can remember. He rubs elbows with felons and mobsters. Hell, he actually employs them, knowingly and unapologetically. His marriage history rivals many of Hollywood's more notorious bed hoppers. Have things changed that much that all this is now worthy of no more than a shrug of the shoulders? Will we see the eventual Dem nominee make an issue of these dalliances? Rudy seems so ripe for derision and scorn I can't understand the "party of values" even considering him. Yet there he is, leading in the polls, attracting the support of all the "moral" citizens on the Right. Strange that.

Posted by steve duncan | October 10, 2007 10:04 AM

Marc is a very smart guy, much too smart to use the old cliche about a "quirk" in the law (or "delegate allocation schema"). It's not a quirk. It was put there to strengthen the hand of "real conservatives," and to prevent the GOP from kidnapped by those damn hippies in New York and California.

Posted by Alan Vanneman | October 10, 2007 10:22 AM

Anything to prevent the southern states from going winner-take-all as a response?

Posted by witless chum | October 10, 2007 10:37 AM

"The Republican Party hasn't really had a competitive race for the nomination since 1980 or so, so everyone's a bit rusty on how this works."

Well, given that there have been multiple very competitive races for the GOP nomination since 1980, I think you'd be better off phrasing this as:

The Republican Party hasn't really had a race for the nomination without a clear frontrunner in quite a while.

1988 and 2000 were both quite competitive. 1996 a bit less so, but not drastically.

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Also worth noting that the Democratic Party similarly over-advantages states that vote Democratic in allocating delegates.

But since the Dems are more likely to coalesce around whoever does well in the early states than the Republicans are, this is less important for us this cycle.

Posted by Petey | October 10, 2007 10:44 AM

But since the Dems are more likely to coalesce around whoever does well in the early states than the Republicans are

Why do you think that? Is there are particular reason that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to do so, or are you just extrapolating from Kerry's experience in 2004?

And I thought in one of yesterday's posts, you were arguing that Rudy had better win in one of the first three states or else he's toast. Isn't that contradictory?

Frankly, I think it is unlikely that the delegate bonus will be meaningful. The releative delegate counts are not that important, since by the end of the process, the winner will most likely be racking up virtually all delegates from the last states to vote.

Posted by Al | October 10, 2007 11:12 AM

"Is there are particular reason that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to do so"

IMHO, yup. Is there definitely are.

Compare the Dem '08 field with the Dem '88 field to see why.

In '08, Edwards, Obama, and Clinton are all acceptable candidates to huge majorities of the Party. Or put another way, there is no concentrated bloc in the Party that sees it as their mission to stop any of those three. So once we get past the watershed of the initial states, everyone will quickly coalesce behind the front-runner.

But in '88, many of the candidates had dedicated opposition within the Party. Gephardt had opponents due to his protectionism and closeness to unions. Al Gore had opponents due to seeming too right-wing. Jesse Jackson had opponents due to a variety of concerns, mainly centered on electability.

So in '88, we had a long process to find the candidate with the fewest dedicated enemies, the guy who could create consensus. Being the anti-Jackson candidate in '88 had great value for Dukakis. But being the anti-Clinton or anti-Edwards candidate in '08 holds zero value. Similarly, the Gephardt win in Iowa in '88 was worthless because wide swaths of the Party weren't willing to accept it as determinative because they were opposed to what Gephardt stood for. But in '08, whoever wins Iowa won't face that dynamic.

Of course, what I'm getting at here is that I see the GOP field as far more like the '88 Dem field than the '08 Dem field.

There are significant blocs in the GOP that won't see a Romeny win in Iowa as determinative because they've got problems with Romney. Similarly, Giuliani has opponents.

None of this means that Romeny or Giuliani can't win the nomination. But I do think it's going to take more contests, and more focus on delegate allocation scorecard before the GOP will be ready for consensus.

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"And I thought in one of yesterday's posts, you were arguing that Rudy had better win in one of the first three states or else he's toast. Isn't that contradictory?"

Assuming Romeny wins IA, NH, and MI, I think you end up with a Romeny vs anti-Romeny race. And I'd assume that Giuliani won't win SC in that scenario, and thus likely won't be the anti-Romeny heading into 2/5.

If I were in the Giuliani campaign, I'd see NH as a must-win.

Posted by Petey | October 10, 2007 11:44 AM

Bonus delegates account for about 20 of the total number.

I'm going to guess that should be 20%, not 20.

Posted by DonBoy | October 10, 2007 11:44 AM

In short, I think it's highly likely that the Dems will have a nominee on 2/6, and I think it's somewhat unlikely that the GOP will.

Posted by Petey | October 10, 2007 11:51 AM

Two thoughts. One-that Rudy (or his backers/proxies) was involved in California lately trying to change state election laws to make the Electoral College votes proportional (I think by linking the distribution to congressional districts). I know, I know--consistancy...small minds, etc.

And-if somehow Thompson doesn't beat Rudy for the nomination I expect the southern Repubs will absolutely, no-question be winner-take-all in 4yrs. I bet the pooh-bahs of the Repub party are kicking themselves right now for that little slip-up.

Posted by JohnMcC | October 10, 2007 12:04 PM

Alan Vanneman @10:22am: Marc is a very smart guy, much too smart to use the old cliche about a "quirk" in the law (or "delegate allocation schema"). It's not a quirk. It was put there to strengthen the hand of "real conservatives," and to prevent the GOP from kidnapped by those damn hippies in New York and California.

I'm no defender of the GOP, but it strikes me as quite sensible that the GOP should select its Presidential candidate in a way that best reflects the choices of Republicans.

Ambinder points out that NY and GA have 104 and 72 delegates, respectively, which seems way out of whack, given the population differential. But in 2004, 2,962,567 New Yorkers voted for Bush, and 1,914,254 Georgians voted for Bush.

If we go by that alone, maybe NY should have 7 more delegates, or GA five fewer, but it's in the right ballpark. And maybe the delegate distribution is in line with the average of votes in a larger basket of races.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | October 10, 2007 12:14 PM

1988 and 2000 were both quite competitive.

Hmm, I wish someone had informed Senator McCain of that in 2000; perhaps he wouldn't have dropped out after three states. Given that Big Money had anointed GWB the previous year, this must be the definition of "competitive" that's a synonym for "fool's errand." Perhaps you mean merely that other candidates ran for the nomination, but that obviously wasn't the sense in which Mr. Yglesias meant it.

Posted by mds | October 10, 2007 12:47 PM

"Hmm, I wish someone had informed Senator McCain of that in 2000; perhaps he wouldn't have dropped out after three states"

McCain managed to win seven states, which is quite a feat for having dropped out after three states, no?

McCain was still a completely viable candidate winning primaries a full month after Iowa. That's a competitive race in my book.

Posted by Petey | October 10, 2007 2:30 PM