Parties altering 2012 calendars

President Obama is still settling into the White House, but the process by which someone will succeed him is getting under way as both Democrats and Republicans establish panels aimed at perfecting their broken primary systems.

Both parties begin with the simple goal of delaying their 2012 nominating calendars. This is a direct result of 2008, when several rogue states led Iowa and New Hampshire to hold their nominating conventions in the first week of that year.

{mosads}Panels established by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC) will focus on moving back by several weeks the “window” in which states can hold their nominating contests. The goals, say participants, are to avoid what they see as the inevitable creep toward a national primary as well as the necessity to campaign over the holidays, which is what happened in the 2008 cycle.

“Campaigning during Christmastime — I think that’s just crazy,” said David Norcross, an RNC member from New Jersey and a member of the GOP’s calendar commission. “Can’t we have a couple of weeks where we do something other than politics?”

Both parties have reason to be concerned about their current processes for nominating a presidential candidate. The hodgepodge of caucuses and primaries in 2008, some open to any voter regardless of party affiliation and others open only to loyal party members, allowed outcomes with which neither party was entirely satisfied.

On the Democratic side, the myriad smaller caucus states that Obama won gave him an insurmountable delegate lead, while then-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) hung around with wins in traditionally momentum-building states like California, Texas and Ohio. The lack of a decisive victory for either candidate meant their primary dragged through all 50 states and beyond, with Clinton campaigning in Puerto Rico and Obama opening a campaign office half a world away in Guam.

Though the party was ultimately successful in November, Obama promised to help alter the system. During the Democratic National Convention, delegates adopted a resolution establishing a Democratic Change Commission, reminiscent of earlier efforts to reform the process that, so far, have been less than successful.

The commission, made up of 37 members from around the country, will aim to move the nominating window back to the first Tuesday in March, with pre-approved states like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada allowed to hold their events beginning Feb. 1.

Commissioners will also strive to avoid allowing primaries to be stacked on top of each other, a circumstance that led to 22 states holding contests on Super Tuesday in 2008.

Perhaps the body’s most lasting effort will come in the form of reducing the number of Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs), better known as superdelegates, who are granted automatic votes at conventions.

Those superdelegates raised questions among supporters of both candidates in 2008, many of whom wondered why they had as much power as voters in many states. The commission will strive for a “significant reduction” in the number of PLEO delegates.

Rhodes Cook, an independent political analyst, said the Democratic commission “looks like another case of fighting the last war,” with battles warming again over issues that were fought over last year.

{mospagebreak}Most notably, several Democrats who have been outspoken advocates of primary-system reform — mainly agitating to dislodge Iowa and New Hampshire from their positions as the nation’s first contests — are absent from the panel.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) and DNC members Debbie Dingell, Harold Ickes and Elaine Kamarck, all veterans of past primary battles, are not on the panel, though Ickes and Kamarck sit on the Rules and Bylaws Committee, the next stop for recommendations panelists make.

{mosads}Democratic strategists say they doubt the results of the commission will significantly alter what happens in future elections.

“All I know is that whatever comes out of [the commission] and instituted will be undone and reworked by another commission in 10 or 20 years, when the primary season is mucked up again,” groused one presidential campaign veteran.

On the Republican side, some unhappy with Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) nomination have blamed independents in New Hampshire who chose Republican ballots in the primary, effectively breathing new life into McCain’s campaign with a narrow win over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R). The timing of later contests allowed McCain to gather momentum over the better-funded Romney.

Now a new committee established at the 2008 GOP convention is set to take shape, with members reviewing contest timing, reviving a debate that has quietly raged within the committee for years.

“Even in this climate of instant information, momentum and early wins mattered more than most expected,” said one Republican who is angling for a spot on the committee.

Five of the Republican committee’s 15 members have been selected already, winning election at the party’s winter meetings in late January and including new Chairman Michael Steele. Steele will appoint three additional RNC members and six Republicans who do not serve on the national committee, along with a general counsel who will also get a vote.

The debate on the GOP side will come down to allocating dates for primary contests, with committee members intent on avoiding jamming dozens of states together.

“We ought to have an orderly process that spreads out the primaries a bit. I think we’re headed for essentially a national primary that happens on one or two days, and that’s not good,” said Norcross.

Republicans will dredge up old fights over plans that would group primary states by size, or by coupling traditionally blue states with traditionally red states, forcing potential nominees to break out of their comfort zones with the goal of becoming more well-rounded for a general election.

But while party leaders on both sides can alter their rules and threaten states with sanctions for not following those rules, ultimately the decision of when to hold various nominating contests can be in the hands of state legislatures, which dole out the money required to keep polling places open.

“Whether any changes will make much difference for 2012, I have my doubts,” Cook said. “More important is whether the Democrats and Republicans can ever get on the same page in terms of overhauling the presidential nominating process. That is when you would have real change.”