GOP Primary Megathread!

[DGuller]

Who can vote in these primaries? Everybody? Registered Republicans only?

Depends on a state.  It can be registered Republicans, registered Republicans and independents, or everyone.  Being a registered Republican isn't much of a hurdle to overcome either, it's just a matter of ticking a box on the form.

[Admiral Yi]

In Iowa you can change your registration at the caucus.

[The Larch]

IMO a primary election like this is a purely internal matter of the party in question, and shouldn't be directed at the general public in principle, but only at the party affiliates. I understand the rationale to open up the electorate a bit from that public, but not that much. IIRC the French Socialst party allows affiliates and sympathizers to vote on their primaries, following some criteria and paying a small fee. That could be some kind of compromise solution.

[crazy canuck]

IMO a primary election like this is a purely internal matter of the party in question, and shouldn't be directed at the general public in principle, but only at the party affiliates. I understand the rationale to open up the electorate a bit from that public, but not that much. IIRC the French Socialst party allows affiliates and sympathizers to vote on their primaries, following some criteria and paying a small fee. That could be some kind of compromise solution.

Our Federal Liberal party is thinking about creating an American style primary system to boost their profile and regain popularity with voters.

[Ed Anger]

I switched in '08 to dem just to vote for Hillary. Then as soon as I could, switched back to independent.

[Malthus]

IMO a primary election like this is a purely internal matter of the party in question, and shouldn't be directed at the general public in principle, but only at the party affiliates. I understand the rationale to open up the electorate a bit from that public, but not that much. IIRC the French Socialst party allows affiliates and sympathizers to vote on their primaries, following some criteria and paying a small fee. That could be some kind of compromise solution.

Our Federal Liberal party is thinking about creating an American style primary system to boost their profile and regain popularity with voters.

That's just sad.   

[DGuller]

IMO a primary election like this is a purely internal matter of the party in question, and shouldn't be directed at the general public in principle, but only at the party affiliates. I understand the rationale to open up the electorate a bit from that public, but not that much. IIRC the French Socialst party allows affiliates and sympathizers to vote on their primaries, following some criteria and paying a small fee. That could be some kind of compromise solution.

The American primary system evolved.  It used to be a fairly closed process, but starting about a hundred years ago, binding primaries were slowly phased in.  That process is still not complete, Democrats still have "super-delegates" that are not bound by voting results, and they have a solid chunk of the votes in the convention.  I'm not sure if they'll ever have the balls to overturn the popular vote, but the possibility is there.

[Jacob]

Our Federal Liberal party is thinking about creating an American style primary system to boost their profile and regain popularity with voters.

That doesn't strike me as being a good move. How is that supposed to help?

[alfred russel]

Doesn't Iowa just represent 1% of the votes or so? I don't understand why you would drop out with 99% still to go.

Tim Pawlenty dropped out because he lost a straw poll in Iowa

He'd be surging around about now.  He could even be the leader had he stayed in.

I think I posted at the time something along the lines of the process working by weeding out a candidate so stupid as to think a summer straw poll in Iowa was determinative of anything.

[alfred russel]

All this coming and going makes me think about how unreasonably complicated, long and thus expensive US primaries are. Can't there be a simpler and fairer system?

I agree it is too long--rather than the caucuses being tonight they should be in the early summer--but I think the process is less terrible than people think. By having the focus on a couple of small states to kick things off, candidates without money get a shot. This is probably as fair as we can get (though reforms like getting rid of superdelegates and ensuring secret ballots would help too).

[Neil]

Our Federal Liberal party is thinking about creating an American style primary system to boost their profile and regain popularity with voters.

That doesn't strike me as being a good move. How is that supposed to help?

Well, it would ensure that someone like Stephane Dion would never get a chance to guy the party again.

[dps]

IMO a primary election like this is a purely internal matter of the party in question, and shouldn't be directed at the general public in principle, but only at the party affiliates. I understand the rationale to open up the electorate a bit from that public, but not that much. IIRC the French Socialst party allows affiliates and sympathizers to vote on their primaries, following some criteria and paying a small fee. That could be some kind of compromise solution.

I'm not sure about the exact number of states that fall into each camp, but certainly in a substantial portion of the states, you have to be registered as a member of a party to vote in that party's primary, but in other states, registered members and registered independents can vote in a primary, and in a few states, anyone can vote in a primary, even if registered as a member of another party.  In some states, you don't even register as a member of a party, just as a voter in your precinct--Virginia, for example (or at least that was the case 10 years ago), so you can just show up at the polling place and state which party's primary you want to vote in.  In Virginia at least, you can supposedly be required to pledge to support the candidates of the party in whose primary you wish to vote in the following general election, but in practice they don't bother making you pledge because there's no way to enforce it.

I tend to agree that only registered members of a party should be allowed to vote in a party's primary, and I believe that used to be the norm.  But there has apparantly been a trend towards allowing independents at least to vote in primaries, probably because there are more and more people who don't want to register as either a Democrat or Republican.  (50 or 60 years ago, probably 95% of register voters identifed as and registered as members of 1 of the 2 main parties, now around a third or more of the electorate are independents.)

[jimmy olsen]

Results are starting to come in!

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/states/iowa

[jimmy olsen]

Lol

Ron Paul
   9    42.9%    
   —
Rick-perry
   4    19.1       
   —
Mitt-romney
   3    14.3       
   —
Rick-santorum
   3    14.3       
   —
Newt-gingrich
   2    9.5       
   —
Michele-bachmann
   0    0.0   

[Eddie Teach]

Gah, I hope that Perry's standing doesn't hold up.