On a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, senior RNC officials addressed the situation of their now disrupted primary calendar, which was caused by Florida moving its primary to January 31, ahead of the officially sanctioned early states that were supposed to go in February. However, the senior officials still claimed success in the calendar overall — even though Florida has broken the rules, and now the official early states are likely to lose half their delegates, too.
The formal rules, adopted last year, provided for four states to vote in February: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Then other states could hold contests in March under various methods of proportional representation, and states that voted from April onward could be winner-take-all. But all of that has been up-ended by Florida’s decision to vote on January 31, which will cause the official four early states to move even earlier into January .
The officials discussed how the RNC’s rules were done as a reaction to the 2008 calendar, when Super Tuesday in early February became almost a de facto national primary: “The intent of it all was to get away from having a national primary and really try to start a bit later, but really have more states participate, and have more people able to participate in a meaningful way…And I think for the most part we’re going to accomplish that.”
They continued: “While the date may change a lot from the starting point, I think the bulk of them will take place in March and April — rather than January and February, like you saw in 2008.”
But there is a catch. The officials confirmed that the rules imposing a 50% loss of delegates for states that go out of their allotted turn leave no discretion to the RNC, to either reverse or strengthen any penalty. Not only that, but they apply to all states that hold their binding contests too early — including New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina for moving into January. (Iowa will be exempted, because technically its caucus does not formally elect and pledge its delegates on the caucus date — this is done at a later state convention.)
“If you look at how it was done in 2008, that’s how it was done. and there is no waiver in the rules that allows those three other states…we’re talking to those states and explaining it. But yes, that’s the way it was done in 2008, and that’s the way it’ll be done in 2012 as well.”
The officials were also asked whether any further penalties could be imposed against Florida, as some Republicans have speculated — such as relocating the Republican National Convention for 2012, which was awarded to Florida on the same day as the primary calendar rules were passed.
The answer: No, Florida will absolutely still get the convention. “The convention will be in Tampa. We look forward to an amazing convention in Tampa. I hope that is clear.”
Back in 2008, Michigan and Florida held their primaries in January, breaking the official rules from both parties that stipulate only Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina can hold contests in that month. This led to the two states losing half of their delegates on the Republican side — but Florida still benefited from being a major political victory for John McCain, sealing his hold on the nomination. (Mitt Romney had earlier won Michigan, which was also a significant event in throwing McCain off his balance for a week or two.)
The Democrats took a much sterner line with the two states: They were supposed to not count at all. This led to extended political wrangling between the national DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign — which had won the states — and the Obama campaign. Ultimately, the states were allowed to count at half-value, and then later as full votes — but this was only done at the point when Obama had secured the nomination anyway, with a seeming message that the DNC would not allow a rule-breaker to determine the nomination.
