07/23/2013
In the wake of the 2012 election, one point on which practically all Republicans seemed to agree was that their party's presidential-nomination process was broken. Supporters of the GOP's eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, believed that the nature of the process weakened him for the general election. The party's base of conservative activists, meanwhile, believed that the process favored the candidates with the most money, and therefore the views of (often less conservative) wealthy donors. More moderate Republicans thought the process elevated a parade of unserious firebrands who were never real contenders, thereby damaging the party's image with swing voters. And Republicans of all stripes thought the unpleasantness of the process had motivated the strongest candidates to sit out the election entirely.
All of them were right: The Republican Party's presidential-nomination process fails to serve the aims of its voters. And this failure results, at least in part, from the fact that the GOP's process was never designed with conservative goals in mind. Instead, in a peculiar historical turn some four decades ago, Republicans adopted a process that was designed for the Democratic Party by its most liberal activists: New Left reformers who sought to wrest power from Democratic insiders in order to give it to their base. Shortly after the new Democratic primary process was put in place, Republicans emulated it in almost every detail. That system was never a good fit for Republicans; in recent years, however, it has grown even more inimical to the party's interests.
There is no reason for this state of affairs to continue. Instead of preserving a primary process designed for its political rival, the Republican Party should draw on its own principles to create a better method of choosing presidential nominees. By crafting a new nomination process modeled after the process that ratified the Constitution, Republicans could provide themselves with a more dignified, more representative, and more effective means of selecting a candidate. In so doing, they could also render a great service to the nation — by improving their ability to advance the limited-government, pro-market policy reforms America now so desperately needs, and by restoring competitiveness, responsiveness, and vitality to our political system.
READ: PICKING A NOMINEE
In the wake of the 2012 election, one point on which practically all Republicans seemed to agree was that their party's presidential-nomination process was broken. Supporters of the GOP's eventual nominee, Mitt Romney, believed that the nature of the process weakened him for the general election. The party's base of conservative activists, meanwhile, believed that the process favored the candidates with the most money, and therefore the views of (often less conservative) wealthy donors. More moderate Republicans thought the process elevated a parade of unserious firebrands who were never real contenders, thereby damaging the party's image with swing voters. And Republicans of all stripes thought the unpleasantness of the process had motivated the strongest candidates to sit out the election entirely.
All of them were right: The Republican Party's presidential-nomination process fails to serve the aims of its voters. And this failure results, at least in part, from the fact that the GOP's process was never designed with conservative goals in mind. Instead, in a peculiar historical turn some four decades ago, Republicans adopted a process that was designed for the Democratic Party by its most liberal activists: New Left reformers who sought to wrest power from Democratic insiders in order to give it to their base. Shortly after the new Democratic primary process was put in place, Republicans emulated it in almost every detail. That system was never a good fit for Republicans; in recent years, however, it has grown even more inimical to the party's interests.
There is no reason for this state of affairs to continue. Instead of preserving a primary process designed for its political rival, the Republican Party should draw on its own principles to create a better method of choosing presidential nominees. By crafting a new nomination process modeled after the process that ratified the Constitution, Republicans could provide themselves with a more dignified, more representative, and more effective means of selecting a candidate. In so doing, they could also render a great service to the nation — by improving their ability to advance the limited-government, pro-market policy reforms America now so desperately needs, and by restoring competitiveness, responsiveness, and vitality to our political system.
READ: PICKING A NOMINEE
No comments:
Post a Comment