Bernie Sanders's announcement that he was running for President, and the ensuing fulfillment of the potential for a lively Democratic primary after all, got me thinking about primary season in general.
Specifically, I know that it is still months away from the thick of primary season, but I also can't help but remember how Reince Priebus and the GOP supposedly "fixed" the problems they had with their primaries the last time around, in 2012. Among their plans:
Hold the Republican National Convention much sooner.
As of now, there are two convention start dates under consideration. The first is June 27, Priebus' preference. The second is July 18, which the RNC would choose if, for example, the Cleveland Cavaliers were in the NBA championship ("100-1 odds," he said, barring the team signing Lebron James), or the stadium's food supplier or general counsel felt was the only workable date.
Guess it'll be in July.
Along with this plan is the general premise that the primary season will be much more condensed, including supposedly fewer debates.
Reflecting now, on these interesting decisions based on their 2012 defeat, along with the developments in the GOP side of things so far, I am left feeling, how do you say, sensing an impending schadenfreude the likes of which we may never have seen before.
Jed Lewison hit on some of the main points, even last year.
Romney's money problem wasn't that the calendar made it impossible for him to spend general election cash, it's that the only people he raised money from were big donors who maxed out, which meant half the money they donated couldn't be used until the general. If Romney had been able to raise money from small donors, like Obama did, he would have been able to use money earlier. Changing the convention date is solving for the wrong problem.
On the question of the length of the primary and the debates, it's hard to blame Reince for not being happy with how 2012 went down, but consider what might have happened had the primary calendar been condensed: Mitt Romney might not have been the last man standing. Sure, he might have embraced a different strategy, so we'll never really know, but what we do know is that Romney used the long 2012 schedule to his advantage. Not only that, he used the long debate schedule to his advantage, because each time one of his rivals had a strong performance, he came back in the next debate with an even better one.
Modern-day Nostradamus, this Lewison.
Let's square these observations from last year with some of what we have seen so far: multiple Tea-Party favorites giving establishment candidates a run for their money, but when I say their money, I mean their billionaire sugar daddies.
In today's Citizen's United landscape of no-holds-barred political fund-gineering, pitting such candidates against each other would already be bad enough for the optics of the Republican Party. But if they really wanted to go through with this plan of a shorter primary season, it would be all the more catastrophic.
We have how many GOP candidates already officially announced? And it is only April/May of the wrong year. So not only do these blowhards risk overstaying their welcome in the national spotlight, but with their Kochs and Adelsons, and with their egos, are any of them really going to bow out anytime before 2016? Before May/June of 2016?
As the Primaries get closer, public scrutiny of these Republican candidates will only get all the more intimate, and one wonders if that will do any of them any good. The fact that Priebus and Co want to shorten how much America even sees of them, that kind of leads me to conclude otherwise. And yet, with their pockets flush with PAC money, will any of them really bow out?
One is hard-pressed to really believe the RNC could truly be this ragged. Surely, this is to a certain extent a Pro-wrestling style performance. Surely, the contenders are just ginning up as much publicity for themselves as is allowable, then will obediently fall in line behind the true torchbearer. And of course, there must be some element to that.
But at the end of the day, I just can't shake the feeling that the Republican Party has royally botched this whole thing up, and the only question is how hard are they going to fall. Perhaps it is wild optimism, but when I often ask myself, could they really be this terrible? They go and do something that leads me to lean, pretty much yes.
So, even though the Primaries are still a long ways away, it seems almost like the trainwreck has already begun.
On the Democratic side, it is shaping up to be something to get excited about. With at least two strong contenders in Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, it is no doubt that whoever earns the nomination will be battle-tested and chomping at the bit for the Generals. Meanwhile on the Republican side, they will be lucky if they can even pick one candidate without it turning into an all-out cat fight.
Of course, anything can happen, and winning the Presidency is surely not a guaranteed thing.
Still, I can't help but feel many magnitudes of gratitude that I am not one of the people relying on the Republican primaries to produce my winning candidate.