California’s Coup D’Etat
California did it. Governor Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger signed into law a measure passed by the ultra-liberal California Legislature which moves the Presidential primary to February 5, 2008. Many other States, including New York and Texas, may do so. New Hampshire, the nation’s first primary election, is forced now to move its date up a bit so that it retains the status as the kingmaker of American politics. Depending how the New Hampshire Legislature legislates, the Iowa Caucuses may be moved up even earlier. Next thing we know we will all be casting our ballots on the way to church on Christmas Eve or to our synagogue on the way to celebrate the Festival of Lights.
If this weren’t so serious it would be humorous.
At the beginning of the 20th Century primaries were unknown. Each State selected its delegates to the national conventions by holding a caucus of some sort. I don’t mean anything like the Iowa Caucuses, which now attract well over 100,000 participants. No, these caucuses were relatively small. At most a few hundred of the party faithful gathered together for the purpose of sending a select few to the national gathering, which was much larger and often in a distant city. It was about these caucuses that the term “smoke-filled room” was born. In a few States, just a handful of people in a room, where cigars and brandy were abundant, sat down to play cards and to figure out who the next nominee of their party would be.
Then along came Governor Robert M. LaFollette (D-WI,) who initiated the primary system as a means to select delegates to the national conventions.
LaFollette was one of the founders of the Progressive Party and the primary was one of his many reforms, designed to put more power in the hands of the people, thus lessening the power of the smoked-filled room. A few States adopted the Progressive Party reforms but most continued to select their delegates to a national convention by a caucus of some sort. It wasn’t until the latter half of the 20th Century that the majority of States adopted the primary system. Now only a handful of States still select delegates by convention.
The primary system is a good one provided that it is stretched over several months. From the Iowa Caucuses in January to the California Primary in June potential nominees could be vetted by the electorate. It was a time for practice, if you will, for the major national election in November.
The Governor and the Legislature in California got all hot and bothered to move their primary to February 5, 2008 because it had been a long time since California had been the major factor in a race for the Presidency. To be precise, it was 1964 and Senator Barry M. Goldwater won a close primary election over New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. That was the last time California determined who the nominee of either party would be.
The move to February 5 would not be so pernicious if California alone were doing so. But most of the large States are accelerating their primaries as well. So we will have a super-duper primary and, bang, the nominee will have been chosen right then and there. Whom does super-duper primary help? In the case of the GOP it helps Rudolph W. (Rudy) Giuliani, assuming he can keep the poll numbers he now has. Rudy is the big-money candidate. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS), Senator Charles T. (Chuck) Hagel (R-NE), Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AK), Congressmen Duncan Hunter (R-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Thomas G. (Tom )Tancredo (R-CO) will have absolutely no chance under this system. On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT) and Joseph P. Biden, Jr. (D-DE) and former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) also will be relegated to has-beens under this new system because Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has the money.
In fact, it is doubtful that Governor Ronald W. Reagan (R-CA) could have come back from his earlier defeats, as he did in 1976 in North Carolina. He would require a huge sum of money to win on this super-duper primary system. And since Reagan was defeated in New Hampshire by incumbent President Gerald R. Ford (R-MI), he would not have been able to raise in a few days the huge amount of money required of a defeated candidate.
I always have favored a series of regional primaries spread over six months. Each region of the country would hold a primary on a different day, a month apart from another region. That would give candidates from all over the nation an opportunity to be nominated.
But this system says that our Presidential candidates must be rich and must have money to burn all during the year before that February doomsday. It is a distortion of our political system.
If we had a series of regional primaries it could take until the last primary for a candidate to be nominated. Incumbent Presidents would win by default. It is the challengers that concern me. This is the first time in more than half a century that there is no clear heir apparent in either party. But if this goes through it will be Hillary v. Rudy. And that will produce a massive walk-out from the Republican Party. Many are in that party because of pro-life and pro-family concerns. They have given up on the Democratic Party since 1980. If the Republicans are foolish enough to nominate a candidate who favors abortion rights and rights for homosexuals and so on the GOP will be left with only bitter partisans. All of those grassroots people who joined the Republicans because its candidates protected life will find themselves without a party. Even though it is terribly hard to start a new party, because the rules are stacked against you, it would be done in these circumstances. Without all of the pro-life and pro-family people voting Republican, Hillary would win.
Without intending to be sacrilegious, one is tempted to use the words of Jesus Christ from the Cross: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
A Free Congress Foundation Commentary. Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
Comments
Why in God’s name is an article by Paul Weyrich doing here on this very fine blog. Weyrich was a Class A sell-out to and apologist for the Bush Administration’s embryonic stem-cell compromise in 2001. He introduced the most tortured and problemed logic into the discussion, ignoring in its entirety Donum Vitae and its teaching on the moral handling of corpses. The man is just prototypical Reichs Church, the very embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the present pro-life “leadership”. He’s a contaminant here.
John Lowell
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I do not know Taki, and I do not know Mr. Lowell, but I do know Mr. Weyrich. Taki and his readers are lucky to have him, and for Mr. Lowell to object to his presence as a “contaminant” raises the question, just what does the recipe call for? And who is the chef?
Mr. Lowell apparently has some differences with Mr. Weyrich on issues regarding faith and morals in the Catholic Church, and their impact (or lack of it) on Mr. Weyrich’s views of the 2001 stem-cell decisions of the Bush administration.
Taki’s website was evidently not online then, so Mr. Lowell has chosen to introduce the issue five and a half years later, “commenting” on an article that has no visible connection to that subject—except its author, who holds many other views as well.
Mr. Lowell has obviously harbored these misgivings for a long time. He owes Taki a debt of gratitude for allowing them to abide here. If there arises the opportunity for the discussion of stem-cell research on this website, perhaps Mr. Lowell could contribute. Mr. Weyrich could be invited to do so as well. Clearly the Bush administration has been a major disappointment to Americans of all parties, and I would not be surprised if Mr. Weyrich was not one of them.
In the meantime, Mr. Weyrich’s comments on the stacked deck of the primary system—the major impact of which is to exclude the input of the virtuous people of Federalist 57—are spot-on. Few could put them so succinctly, and with such historical acumen, as Mr. Weyrich does here.
It is my impression that Mr. Weyrich’s presence is not a contaminant here, but one that personally **irritates** (but does not contaminate) Mr. Lowell, which is, in my view, what Mr. Lowell should have said in the first place, this being a gentleman’s hangout, after all.
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Christopher,
Now I don’t know Christopher and, gratefully, I don’t know Weirich, but it would seem from the evidence that one person’s cuddle bear is another’s paramecium, what say, Christopher? In any case, one discerns from your parting paragraph an unfortunate bent toward “shoulding”, a “contaminant” of a kind in its own right, and most decidedly an “irritant” among gentlemen.
I’m utterly unable to share your apparent preference for form over truth, Christopher, and when it comes to Weirich, I’d recommend a bottle of Listerine. You’re an Episcopalian, perhaps?
John Lowell
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I appreciate the back and forth here, and don’t regard these criticisms of Mr. Weyrich as abusive, so I’m letting them remain. I respect Mr. Weyrich’s work very much, and am grateful that he is allowing us to reprint his weekly commentaries.
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Is this a Melkite thing, Deacon Weyrich???
I too had an oped published today in the Asbury Park Press on the early primary (NJ also moved up to Feb. 5) and how putting delegates on the ballot will squash the 2nd tier candidates who have lots of interesting things to say.
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070322/OPINION/703220421/1030
Best,
George Ajjan
http://www.georgeajjan.com
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Hm. I’m no great fan of Weyrich, but as for his (arguably or not) being a contaminant, if you sterilise an environment too thoroughly then your own resistance weakens. And I think it was Bernanos who said something like, “gold is useless unless alloyed with baser metals.”
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Besides, contaminants only trouble folks with contamination phobias!
As Bertie Wooster once said: “If we refused to have anything to do with anybody who wasn’t a Schindlerian ressourcement Catholic, we’d be… well where would we be Jeeves? I ask you that! Eh? Bally confusing, really.”
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I think he has a point, except that many have already left the republican party, and barring a Ron Paul nomination (theists believe in miracles), I doubt the rest of the base will stay. Who came up with the scorched earth for the grass roots?
But Fraulein Roddhammeyer (Clara can’t get past the HHS gatekeeper) Chancellor, for 4 years will likely prove more tolerable than baby Bush’s 8. Part of the reason is that socialism/liberalism doesn’t work, so is far less effective.
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By the way, this remark made me cock an eyebrow with a wry smile: “I’m utterly unable to share your apparent preference for form over truth… You’re an Episcopalian, perhaps?” I mean, even Pope Benedict wouldn’t go QUITE so far as to suggest that his separated brethren Episcopalians prefer “form over truth”. ;-) And as Mr Sarto says in his most recent article ("Don’t Look Left"),
we really should remember who the real enemies are. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to attribute TOO much of the rampant decline of civilisation to the Episcopalians or to the likes of Queen Elizabeth (who, in my estimation, in her subtle way is one of the greatest monarchs in all English history.)
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Ah, yes, my friends Ball and Zmirak.
J. Ball:
Continuing with what up to now has been a theme in our back-and-forth here, let me suggest that at last we would seem to have found a suitable use for alcohol, albeit the 91% rubbing variety. :-)
More seriously, you presuppose some requirement for association with these folks? Bernanos notwithstanding, I see no such requirement. Rather that these others join those of us who have placed a priority on seeking out the form of Christ in the world. Not much of this latter in apologizing for the federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, eh? And its right there at this most fundamental level that the authenticity of any drive to change the culture must be grasped. In any event we’re told reliably that ultimately this change will be brought about by Christ’s own drawing-in of the world. There’s the proper focus, not the forging of so-called “moral majorities” with emphases on football stadium rallies and the debased commodification of the faith. The example of St. Therese is instructive and I don’t recall seeing commentary of hers on all of those evil liberals. Rather she speaks of smallness and it’s there that we find our future. In a word, I don’t think we need ‘em. Not for a moment.
John Zmirak,
But we can all be Schindlerian, ressourcement Catholics if only we would try, eh? And it is precisely Schindler’s standard against which the nonsensical claims of a Neuhaus to an authentic grasp of von Balthasar and others must be made. Neuhaus and confederates like Weirich - if Weirich is even conscious of being grounded in anything at all besides the Republican Party - are wedded to an anachronistic, preconciliar vision of the relation of nature and grace. These folks are prominent enough and sufficiently influential to be held to the most precise standards. Parading about as “orthodox” when we can’t even reach to the most fundamental understanding of theological anthropology and have that correctly translate when it comes to something as important as embryonic stem-cell research is thoroughly reprehensible. Neuhaus never once criticised Bush’s authorization of the funding of research on those 60 or so stem cell lines. Weirich did nothing but apologize for it. I see no need and little gain in seeking alliance with such people.
Very best to both of you.
John Lowell
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I enjoyed this article, Mr. Weyrich.
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