Why do Parties Choose a Convention or Primary?
Why do Democrats hold primaries while Republicans increasingly opt for conventions? We get answers from David Ramadan, a former Republican Delegate from Loudoun County now with the Schar School of Public Policy at George Mason University. We also interview Trevor Southerland, former Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus.
We dissect the Republican Party of Virginia's decision to hold a convention and what that means for Amanda Chase's gubernatorial prospects. What other Republicans might run and how did past conventions play out?
Michael Pope
Welcome to Transition Virginia, the podcast that examines the transition of power from Republican to Democrat in Virginia. My name is Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman. Today on the podcast, conventional politics, that is to say parties using conventions rather than primaries to determine statewide candidates. We're joined by Transition team regulars. Our first guest is former Republican from the House of Delegates and he is now at the Schar School at George Mason University. David Ramadan, thank you for joining us.
David Ramadan
Glad to be back.
Michael Pope
We're also joined by the former Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus, and fan favorite of Transition Virginia, Trevor Southerland. Thanks for joining us.
Trevor Southerland
Always, always glad to be here.
Michael Pope
All right, well, let's start the discussion by laying out on the table here what we're talking about here. So when a party chooses a candidate to run for Governor or Lieutenant Governor, or Attorney General, or even delegate, or city council member, they need to have a process for choosing the candidate. And I think most people just assume a primary is is how that's normally done. But that's not always the case. In fact, the Republican Party of Virginia has had a long standing love affair with conventions, they love using conventions to choose their candidates. David Ramadan, I've got to start with you. What's up with Republicans? Why do Republicans love conventions so much?
David Ramadan
Well, it's not only limited to Republicans. Both Democrats and Republicans have opted in the past for a party run nomination process known as mostly as convention. And it was the favorite for Democrats for a long period of time until, in the last 10 or 15 years, became the favored nomination process for Republicans. And it really comes down to the reason that Virginia does not have party registration. This whole shenanigan of party versus primary will be over if Virginia ever allows for party registration. Both parties at one time or another had said, "We are worried that in an open process run by the state, people from the other side of the aisle will come and vote in our election," meaning the primary the open primary, because anybody can walk in and vote them and vote for the weaker candidate, so that the weaker candidate will be up in the General against the other party's candidate. And we've seen some of this happen in the past. It's an arduous process, it's really not practical, parties would pick one location in the state where everybody has to go to and be there for two days sometimes, and run one ballot after another, after another, and you find less than 10% of who would identify as a Republican would go to such conventions. Therefore, it becomes only the the hardcore, and only the extreme candidates that end up winning, in general, these conventions. There are always exceptions to the rule. We'll talk about that as well in the Gillespie case. But in general, it becomes a process for the hardcore and for candidates that normally cannot make it in an open party process run by the state, namely primary.
Michael Pope
So, as David Ramadan points out, it's not just Republicans. Democrats also have some history in this, and I know here at the local level, here in Alexandria, I remember covering a, what they called, a Firehouse Caucus here in Alexandria, when they were choosing the candidates, the Democratic candidates, for City Council. And so they were meeting at a community center here, it was a day long thing where if you were a registered voter, you can show up, but they made you sign a loyalty pledge, promising that you would vote for the Democrat in the General Election, wasn't legally binding, but you still had to sign it. So Trevor, is there some sort of concern among members of any political party, that because we don't have party registration in Virginia, that there could be shenanigans with these sort of open forums where anybody can come and vote?
Trevor Southerland
Yeah, I mean, there's always that concern, when you don't have party registration that you can jump over into the other party's primary and try to do something. I think it gets even more concerning when you are doing a party run nomination process, because they tend to have far less voters, whether it is a convention or a caucus, or a firehouse primary, or an unassembled caucus, or any of these different things that we sometimes do in Virginia, you're limiting the voter pool, and when you do that, you make it easier for someone to manipulate it. It is very hard to manipulate a primary, you would have to have a mass movement of people to do that. However, if you're talking about a method of nomination where there's only going to be 300 or 400, 500 voters, that is quite easier for a different political party to try to manipulate and cause some shenanigans. So there's always that worry, especially by the party volunteers and people that are running those things.
Thomas Bowman
Okay, so let's bring this up to the present day. The Republican Party just made a decision, controversial one, to have a convention rather than a primary, David Ramadan, what does that mean? What does that mean for potential Republican candidates in 2021?
David Ramadan
Well, like everything else in 2020, these are not normal times. And this five hour debate that took place at the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia meeting was a typical 2020, where we saw a unique combination of members of the State Central who voted for convention, some of whom have normally will not be supporters of convention. However, a candidate by the name of Amanda Chase, who's the current State Senator from the Richmond suburbs area, has declared that she is running this year for Governor. She is a, to say the least, fiery, far right candidate, who had pretty much alienated everybody in her own Caucus, as much as everybody that knows her, with the exception of few absolute far right groups that she had played to. This is somebody who had gone out and said, "Democrats hate white people." She says the craziest things, she has been kicked out by the Republican Committee in her area, sitting State Senator who got kicked out by her own committee, and she no longer caucuses with the Republicans in the Senate, because she knew she was gonna be kicked out of that as well. I believe she has no, no committee assignments. So she's been alienated in the Virginia Senate. And she said that she wants to run in a primary this year, which with the number of candidates running, there was the common belief that if you have five or six or seven candidates running, and you get one extreme candidate like her, who could bring in 20, 30% of the votes, she could end up winning the nomination. And that scared some people to the point then they thought, "Oh, okay, well, let's vote for a convention where we control the process. And among that control, could be the possibility of disqualifying her altogether from running in the convention because she had violated a party rules and she's been kicked out of her local committee, and she's technically not a Republican."
Michael Pope
Well, wait a second, so you say she's not a Republican, but she was elected as a Republican. And it's true, that she's no longer a member of the Caucus. But she is an elected Republican, right?
David Ramadan
Not anymore. She was she was kicked out of her own party.
Michael Pope
But she was elected as a Republican. And so right now, I mean, like...
David Ramadan
Right now she's an Independent.
Trevor Southerland
She was elected on the Republican ballot. But she is not a member of the Chesterfield County Republican Committee.
David Ramadan
To be considered a Republican, you get to be a member of a Committee, since we don't have party registration in Virginia. I was a member of the Loudoun County Committee when I ran for office. And I ran as a Republican, I won as a Republican. However, a person who is no longer a member of a local committee, is no longer a Republican, in technicality. And therefore, if that person goes to a party controlled process, that person could be disqualified from running in a party controlled process.
Michael Pope
And just to be clear, you feel like that's what will happen in the Republican Convention, is if she wanted to participate and run, she would essentially be disqualified because she's not a member of her local Republican Committee. Is that accurate?
David Ramadan
Absolutely. It was not discussed at this State Central Committee meeting, which is an open meeting and everybody watching online. This is, but this is one of the dangers for her, if she should run, and one of the most likely scenarios that there will be some people that will move to disqualify her, and she would likely they're also going to do or likely disqualify her. Yes. So the party decided to go for a five hour debate back and forth. They decided to go for a convention, she immediately went out and claimed that even though she considers herself as a Republican, she's committed to running, she's going to run as an Independent in the in the primaries, which, you know, if you're an Independent, you don't run in a primary. The Senator has not gotten her facts straight. She even tried to spin it that no, she meant the General because the General is a primary. Sorry, Senator, it's not. And so she announced that she will be running as an Independent. She meant the General, she said the Primary mistakenly. However, the day after, she put out some sort of another Facebook post, where she said that she's going to try to even, to get State Central or the party to reverse that decision. And she has spoken to people, or one person who thinks he can change five people's minds on the Committee, which if you do simple math, will still not get her the votes because the vote went 41/28. So even if you flip five people, and you're able to bring back the votes for another five hour discussion, you still are not going to be able to flip the decision.
Thomas Bowman
So it's been our recent experience that conventions tend to advantage more extreme candidates, at least on the Republican side. So if Amanda Chase is to get disqualified, like, who could we expect to be advantaged by this decision?
David Ramadan
Whoever is most organized at that point, and there's so many other complexities. For example, they voted for a convention, however, there was a gentlemen/gentleladies agreement, because the rules don't allow for that, to come up with a scenario where it's an Unassembled Convention, something that's unknown. Due to COVID, there's likely not going to be the capability of holding the real convention. So they're going to have to come up with a makeup convention of some sort. Could that be a drive thru convention, like what we saw in the Fifth District that knocked out Riggleman for good? And that was a disaster. Could it be a mail in convention? Could it be a multi location? They don't know. So depends on what they end up with. As far as this system, the mechanism that they're going to use, and then whoever is the most organized in that matter, would be the one who could win. Now, of course, you're still going to only draw, in any kind or form of a convention, you're only going to draw those that are very committed to the party. If it's some sort of a drive thru or mail in, you may get a little more a little bigger pool of people, however, in general is going to be mostly those who are committed to the party and to the party's ideology. And in that scenario, that would advantageous the person who is the most conservative or can claim to be the most conservative at the time. Those who have actual records that had gone against party ideology would be in jeopardy, and it will be up to messaging who has the best message, or the most conservative message, and be able to communicate it and organize based on donations and money.
Michael Pope
Trevor Southerland, do Democrats want to run against Amanda Chase? Is she the preferred candidate to run against?
Trevor Southerland
As the Republican nominee or as an Independent candidate? I think the answer is probably yes. Either way. Amanda Chase is from the far right, she follows the Corey Stewart mold so to speak. She is going to, similar to Trump, she is going to excite and draw out some voters, but she is also going to lose some voters and she is going to depress some parts of Republican turnout, especially in 2021, when you also have the House on the ballot again. Having Amanda chase as the Republican, is going to help Democrats hold that house majority because it will hurt Republican candidates in Northern Virginia, in the suburbs around Richmond and in Hampton Roads. So Amanda Chase as the Republican, is better for Democrats as a whole. Amanda Chase as an Independent, is good for whoever the Gubernatorial nominee is.
Michael Pope
So we've talked a lot about how this convention versus a primary might influence the Governor's race. In other words, having the convention helps Kirk Cox, it hurts Amanda Chase. Having the primary helps Amanda Chase, more than would be for the convention. That's all at the top of the ticket. David Ramadan, what, if any, are the effects of having a convention for the Lieutenant Governor nominating process or the AG nominating process? How do you see those races influenced and which candidates do you think might benefit from having a convention versus a primary?
David Ramadan
Similar but to a lesser degree, and by the way, a convention does not help Kirk Cox. Kirk Cox has a problem that he'll face in a convention, Kirk Cox voted for the largest tax increase in Virginia's history, which would be brought up in a convention by the base, and Kirk Cox shepherd the extension of Obamacare in Virginia, which will also be brought up to the base by a challenger in the convention. So that does not help him, it actually makes it makes it harder for him.
Michael Pope
Well just to be clear, right now we've got two candidates. And if one of them is disqualified, it helps the candidate that's currently there, but I see your point there like right, so who's going to challenge Cox in a convention setting then?
David Ramadan
It's it's almost guaranteed that they're going to be few more. And we've you know, there are several names that are circulating, some are closer to calling it than others. But you've got sitting members of the House and Senate that are considering it, you got people that are not serving, considering it.
Michael Pope
Who we talking about here?
David Ramadan
Well, former Senator Bill Carrico is thinking about it. And he has formed a small committee that is also active and working on that. Whether he does it or not, we'll see. Emmett Hanger is talking about it. Pete Snyder is, most likely, will end up to be a candidate, he has run before and he'll probably run again, there's quite a bit of talk about that. There's a gentleman from the Carlyle, former Co-Chairman of the Carlyle Group, the name escapes me, I'm told he's been holding quite a bit of meetings around the Commonwealth, having breakfasts, trying to get people's support, it's been said that he can spend $35 million out of his own money, I have not met with him. So to start hand, but from close sources. So there'll be three, four or five, that'll end up to be there. And if they are individuals without a previous record, or individuals with a conservative record, they can definitely challenge Kirk on his record, and his appeal to the base, using the two issues that I just brought up. As for Lieutenant Governor and AG, it will be very similar. Anybody who has voted in the past, from the current runners for issues that are not in line with the base, are going to be challenged in a convention and can be very, very hard to convince people otherwise. In a primary, you can appeal to a bigger pool of people that are not ideologically tuned as party members who attend a convention, and several of the of the candidates will have to try to overcome that. Now the spin is one thing, the reality is another. Somebody like Tim Hugo, who has a strict conservative record, will actually have an advantage in a convention. It will play out the same thing for Lieutenant Governor and AG. However, to a lesser extent, because people are mostly focused on the top of the ticket.
Michael Pope
So you think that a convention might benefit like a Carrico or a Hanger for the Governor's race and Tim Hugo for Lieutenant Governor's race? What about the AG race? Any names there you feel like the convention might help?
David Ramadan
I, you know, Miyares, I believe is only announced one so far, right? Is anybody else on the Republicans...
Trevor Southerland
Don't forget about Chuck, come on.
David Ramadan
Talking about real candidates. So sorry, Chuck is a career candidate who runs for anything and everything. And I do not believe that, that....Anyways, somebody like Miyares, who has a conservative record, and up and coming, and served well, made a name for himself in part of the Commonwealth, that is important for general elections, would benefit from that, but it would become a challenge of ideology and record and Chuck could make those claims against anyone. However, he has run for every open seat under the sun and he's never won a seat. So not somebody who has a proven record of winning elections, not even on party level.
Michael Pope
Okay so, before we go into our commercial break, it sounds like we've got the convention helping Miyares for AG, Hugo for LG, but then we got this race at the top here for Governor. And I'd love to throw this open to predictions for the panel here. In a convention fight between Cox, Carrico and Hanger, who prevails? Trevor, I'll put you on the spot first and we'll go to David Ramadan.
Trevor Southerland
Between those three, Carrico on the first ballot.
Michael Pope
On the first ballot? Oh, wow. Okay, first ballot. David Ramadan, what's your prediction there?
David Ramadan
Yeah, I agree, Carrico will win. That, if that's the three, however, even though there's a lot of talk about that, I do not believe Carrico will be among the people, he's talking about it. I'm not sure that he'll do it. I think the two main competitors for it will be Kirk Cox and Snyder. And among those two, not Snyder wins.
Thomas Bowman
All right, well let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the conventions of the past.
Michael Pope
And we're back on Transition Virginia, we're talking about conventions versus primaries. We're joined by David Ramadan, and Trevor Southerland, our fan favorites here on Transition Virginia. We're gonna get our time machine and talk about conventions of the past. So I have to say, I'm particularly interested in the 2013 Republican Convention, which I was at, in Richmond, and it was a ton of fun. I met a lot of people. It was amazing fun. I'm not really sure it was great for the party necessarily. So if you remember, if you get in the time machine, and go back to 2013, this was a time when Bill Bowling was kind of the Establishment favorite, and who was being challenged by Ken Cuccinelli, who was sort of the Tea Party favorite. And so initially, they were going to have a primary. And then the Cuccinelli people seized control of Republican State Central Committee, and changed the process so that it was a convention instead. Bowling dropped out, Cuccinelli ended up being the nominee, but it had second order effects and third order effects, specifically, with Lieutenant Governor's race. And there were a whole lot of candidates. I'm forgetting how many candidates there were. But actually, we're just talking about Pete Snyder on our previous segment, he was one of those candidates, I believe. And we ended up with E.W. Jackson. David Ramadan, talk about your memories of that 2013 convention and what that meant for the direction of the party ever since then.
David Ramadan
Well, it started with a strategic mistake by Bill Bowling. There was no decision yet for the party, or which way to go for the next nomination process. And Bill Bowling, a year in advance, or year and a half in advanced, thought that he would do better in the primary, and he pushed State Central to take up the issue, almost a year and a half in advance from when they normally would do, and got a vote for a primary, brought up the issue and irked Ken Cuccinelli, who is much better at organizing, and gave Ken Cuccinelli the time to not only work the current State Central members, but actually run a campaign to run a bunch of State Central members around the Commonwealth that will end up flipping the vote. And that's what they did, he took over State Central by getting new people on there, in the next election cycle for that committee. And then they brought up that vote again, and flipped it to a convention, which ousted Bill Bowling out of it. So it started with a strategic mistake by Bill trying to, you know, the vote ahead of time and trying to control the process. Anytime anybody thinks he, whether you're sitting Lieutenant Governor, or a candidate, that you can control the future, it's going to come back and burn you, and it did. Ken took over not only as the candidate for the party at the time, but the trajectory for the party for a while. And it's moved the party more to the right. And it's created, even though there was no doubt at that point that Ken was going to win that nomination, there was no way anybody could figure out what the heck is going to happen for down ballot. All the concentration was on Ken's nomination. And here comes E.W. Jackson, and he beats up trying to remember the third or fourth ballot is when he ended up beating the others that remain there and won the nomination.
Michael Pope
It did go on for several ballots. And it was so interesting because if you, like I, as someone who spends a lot of time reading about elections that happened in the 1920s, and the 1910s, and stuff like that, you read about like, they go into the second ballot, the third ballot, the fourth ballot, sometimes down into like the 80th ballot and stuff like that. But for me, it was all stuff like you read about in, you know, history books, but like seeing after the first ballot, one candidate drops out and distributes the support among the other candidates, and you got all the horse trading. And then after the second ballot, another candidate, or maybe two candidates drop out, and you figure out which of the delegates go to which candidates. And so that's the process that we ended up with a dark horse candidate, that no one going into that convention, could have assumed this guy, E.W. Jackson would emerge. But here's this dark horse candidate, conservative preacher, who called gays sexually twisted, he said that yoga allows for satanic possession. And he said, people who didn't follow Jesus were engaged in a false religion. Trevor Southerland talk about running against someone like E.W. Jackson as a Democrat.
Trevor Southerland
I mean, running against E.W. Jackson, as a Democrat, it opens up a lot of possibilities, because, again, of the possibility that he seeks that middle ground with his rhetoric, but the way he got the nomination, it's one of the beautiful and horrific things of a convention. He was not supposed to win, nobody thought he would win going into it. But he made a really electrifying speech at the convention, I think they really caught on to him and liked him there. But they didn't have time, during that convention, to go back and find out all of this stuff about him, they probably knew some of it. But you don't have time when it is that one or two day convention process, to really be able to vet someone. And so that is part of the danger of a convention that, you know, you're just relying up to those delegates in the hall to choose the nominee. And sometimes they make a mistake. And think they definitely made a mistake with E.W. Jackson.
David Ramadan
Big mistake.
Thomas Bowman
Now, as long as I've been in politics, Democrats haven't pursued a convention. I'll throw this open to the panel. When was the last time Democrats decided to hold a convention instead of a primary?
Trevor Southerland
For a statewide, I don't know. I don't remember when the last time we would have had a convention for a statewide is. Sometimes it happens on the local level. However, everybody was busy paying attention to the Republican State Central Committee last weekend, they might have missed, the Democratic State Central Committee actually altered the party plan to make primaries now the default method of nomination for all Democratic nominations. You could change to a convention if nobody signs up by the time of the primary, but you cannot have, say in a Delegate, a general, you know, Delegate race now, you can't choose a convention over a primary, you have to go with the primary first. That passed with, I think it was 85%. So Democrats have really just said goodbye to conventions and caucuses, except for special elections like we're about to have in the second.
Thomas Bowman
So why would the Democratic Party of Virginia choose to do that?
Trevor Southerland
Well, it's simple. It's...when you do a convention, or when you do a party run process, there's one of two reasons you do it. Either, it's because you quickly need to nominate someone, which is, for example, the way Vip Sullivan was nominated back in 2014, and it's the way whoever is going to succeed Jennifer Carroll Foy in the House of Delegates is going to be nominated. If you do a convention or a party run process, you're doing it to limit involvement, you're doing it to make sure other people, who are not part of your group, can't be involved in it. And oftentimes is to give County Chairs and County Committee members more power. There was actually on that Democratic Central Committee meeting, there was a member of the committee that said, "Doing this is going to take away power from our County Chairs." And everybody was okay with it because it's about putting the power back in the hands of the people, not in the hands of the County Chairs and those few people who were in the party apparatus like that.
Michael Pope
You know, one thing that occurs to me about this, using a convention versus a primary, is the way that David Ramadan talked about that in our first segment, it can be used as a weapon when you don't want, you know, like an Amanda Chase to be the candidate, you have a convention and that excludes her, and then you can sort of use the power of the party to prevent people from being a candidate. So is there a Democratic version of Amanda Chase, who the party might want to prevent from being the nominee?
David Ramadan
Lee Carter. One comes to mind.
Trevor Southerland
But see, this is the problem, though. This is where I feel like at this point in time, the parties look at their wings differently. The Republican Establishment, the normal Republicans, I'm pretty sure there's about four of them left, they look at their wing, and they are terrified, because they are insane. They are threatening people, they show up everywhere with their AK's. You look at the Democratic left wing, and I don't think Lee Carter can win the nomination. And I think most Democrats who were in the middle don't think he can either. So they don't see that as a horrible threat. The Republican Party knows that their right wing can win nominations right now. So they know that they are on the losing side of that. Whereas Democrats look at the left and think, in typical elections, the candidate more towards the center normally wins the nomination.
David Ramadan
Is that truly something that the Democrats are comfortable with after seeing the movements of AOC and Bernie Sanders, and what would stop somebody like Lee Carter from from winning a nomination in a polarized atmosphere, like what we saw on the past few years, even within the party?
Trevor Southerland
And I think that's the difference between where the parties stand right now. On the Democratic side, if Lee Carter won the primary nomination, that would be a message from Virginia Democrats that they want to move further to the left, that they want to go in that direction, and the party would support that. The party would get behind it's nominee.
David Ramadan
Sure. But that's not basically the same as, "We're not worried about him. He can't win." Those are two separate messages.
Thomas Bowman
You know, I'll point out, Lee Carter, recent guest on Transition Virginia, where he discussed why Democrats might want to repeal Right to Work laws, he's got one of the most downloaded episodes. So as great as y'all are, Lee Carter is pretty popular.
Trevor Southerland
Yeah, do not get me wrong. Lee Carter is very popular. But how many of those people, can you track how many of them were Virginians? Lee Carter has a national audience. And that helps him a lot. Except for with votes. With votes, it is still just Virginians that matter. Now, he's done a good job in his Delegate district, because he works his district, he has done a good job there, and to be a good Delegate for those people. Does that translate to a statewide office? I don't know, maybe we'll find out.
David Ramadan
And that's the danger of having different factions at different times in the party, that could go out of control. And that's why some people might want to try to control the process, and brings us back to why they may keep conventions. And it's interesting, and smart by the Democratic Party, to choose primary as the default nomination. However, that doesn't mean that they will not use conventions again. And I would bet that, quote, unquote, the old adage of party bosses would opt for that, again, if they see a danger from an extreme candidate like Lee who could jump in. Or if they think that that is real. Notice, Trevor's initial reaction was, "We don't think he can win, or democrats don't think he can win and that's why they're not worried about it." But if they do think he can win, you will see that move go back. When, in history, I don't recall either, when was the last time on the state level, the Democratic Party held convention, but they used to for a long period of time during the birth years, and other years, where when you want to control when you have somebody who has the capability of controlling or wants to control certain movements within a party, you'll see that party going towards the convention.
Michael Pope
So the conventional wisdom, get it, conventional wisdom is that when Republicans have conventions, they end up with the Ken Cuccinelli candidate or the E.W. Jackson candidate. However, there is some counter examples there, which are interesting to think about, because when the Republicans had a convention to pick their U.S. Senate candidate, they picked Ed Gillespie, the Establishment choice. And when Republicans had a statewide primary to choose their U.S. Senate candidate, a few years later, they picked Corey Stewart, who's the more extreme candidate. So sometimes this logic is upside down, isn't it?
David Ramadan
Correct, and it's the exception of the rule. The rule is you end up with the more extreme candidates in conventions, and the more mainstream candidate in primaries. However, those two are the exceptions of the rule. And they're different years with different dynamics. I earlier mentioned, that who will end up winning the convention, is going to be the person who is the most organized with a good message to claim the bona fides that he or she needs in that in that party. And Ed Gillespie is incredibly smart, incredibly...had a great organization, at the time, had the resources, and actually sought and figured out consciously that the convention would be better for him to get the nomination, and worked it hard, was able to cash in all the relationships that he has around the state. That's a former Chair of the Republican Party of Virginia, former Chair of the National Party in the GOP, the RNC, former Advisor to the President, huge money fundraiser. So he was able to use his experience, his relationships, his favors, his IOU's, and had an excellent organization with the resources needed to win the convention. Now remember, he was never elected prior to this, the only elected positions he was in were party elections, where he had done the party work and was, quote, unquote, the party idea log as a party chairman. So all of his previous record work with who tend to attend the convention, the the base of the party that care about the certain ideology. So you couldn't challenge him on issues, like for example, what they will challenge Kirk Cox in this convention on. And he was able to claim the bona fides that he needed to win the convention. Because the only elected, the only record that he has are party Records, which work within a convention. That doesn't work on the other side for somebody who has been in office and had voted against the party base ideology. It also worked as an exception for Corey Stewart, by the way, because Corey was being accused of raising taxes in Prince William, and the primary worked for him because he was at a danger if he had gone for a convention, because of his tax votes in Prince William. And that's why the, even though he is the far right candidate, at the time, he had a record that would have hurt him in a convention and that's why he was able to work it out within the primary.
Trevor Southerland
And the key word there through all of that was organization. No matter whether you're in a convention or primary, the way you win a campaign is by your organizing effort. When you were in the convention, if you were good at knowing how to organize, how to win a convention, you can do that. We saw it just last year, where I live, where Chris Peace was ousted from his Delegate seat. Had that been a primary, Chris Peace would have easily won the Republican nomination. But it wasn't it was a convention, and the other side, managed to out organize Peace at the county unit level, and managed to take over the Hanover County Committee, managed to get more delegates to the convention, and that's how they won. So it's all about your organization. And when you're in a convention, it is a totally different race than a primary.
David Ramadan
And organization, not just pre-convention, but during the convention. In a statewide convention that's going to take place for 24 or 48 hours in one location, you're going to have to be organized enough to be able to react, get the message to the people that are there, keep them there. And so that you can keep your votes on the second, third, fourth, whatever number of ballots, otherwise, your voters would just walk away after a few hours and go for lunch or dinner or go home unless you bus them in. I mean, the whole convention apparatus is so different than any other election that involves even bussing people in and out, arranging for sleeping commendations, having enough people on the convention floor, having walkie talkies, having messaging, having floor leaders, having...it's a whole different organizational method, that that acquires and have specialists that know what to do with it. That is not the normal election.
Thomas Bowman
You know, there is a layer of nuance here, I think, that's a little deeper than organization that you all bring up, and conventions favor, in a way, demagogues with a cult following, willing to stay to the bitter end. Look at Bob Good verse Denver Riggleman. As you get on to later and later ballots, you know, people have families, people have lives, people can't stay indefinitely, even if they are diehard for whatever party they're a part of. So this is my hypothesis, the longer the convention goes on, the more it favors the celebrity with a cult following.
David Ramadan
Partly. It will, only if there is a lack of organization by the other candidates. If the other candidates are organized enough, that will not affect. However, a demagogue could use the lack of organization by the other candidates, and even if he doesn't have one, then the demagoguery would be the messaging versus organization on the other side. So if all is equal, nobody has a good organization, then yes demagoguery will work. However, demagoguery will not work if a good candidate has good organization, good plan, and is able to act on that plan depending on what changes on the floor as the convention goes along.
Thomas Bowman
Okay, well, we've got to take a break because I'm ready for question time. And now it's time for our favorite segment. It's time for question time. This is the segment where we take questions from our listeners, especially Patreon. And by the way, we owe some new Patreon shout outs. Thank you to recent patrons, Pete Gibson, Virginia's favorite union printer, Harrison Rode and Jamie Lockhart. Transition Virginia greatly appreciates your support for the show.
Michael Pope
Our first question comes from friend of the show, and former guest, Matt Colt Hall. He wants to know why Republicans keep playing games with nomination contests? And David Ramadan, I'll direct that question to you with a little bit of a piggyback, which is, it does strike a lot of people as a little bit strange that this decision was made specifically to exclude a particular candidate. In other words, you've designed your whole nomination process to make sure Amanda Chase is not the nominee, right? That strikes a lot of people as playing games. How do you react to that?
David Ramadan
It wasn't the whole process, it was part of the process or part of the coalition that came together between between the central members, who are believers in convention, and those who figured convention is convenient for them this time. But this is not just why Republicans play games, it's human nature. Unfortunately, when individuals think they can play the system, that's why we see crime. That's why we see people that speed. That's why we see conventions by Democrats and by Republicans now, more so recently, on the Republican side. But it's human nature to try to control an outcome. And human nature is to try to defy the common or equality among all in this here, we're talking about equality of vote or equality of process, not equality of individuals. And because of that human nature, you end up getting people that think, because of power, they can play games, and our history is full of it in the United States, outside the United States. Thankfully, this is still the greatest country on Earth where our games are on an election process, versus our games are on throwing people in jail as in third world countries, or coups or stopping an election or not my former country, Lebanon, the parliament renewed their own term three times in a row because they don't want a home election. They just voted to renew their terms again and again and again. We don't have those shenanigans. So as much as I don't like to see the shenanigans that we have, we are still in a great place in our world order.
Trevor Southerland
Thanks for bringing that up. That's giving me some ideas for next year so.
David Ramadan
I leaned one to let you buddy.
Thomas Bowman
Okay, we've got another question here from friend of the podcast, Sarah Taylor. She asks, "What are the public health optics of a primary versus a convention during a pandemic? Grip and grin, retail politics, shaking hands, and kissing babies across the state to get your name recognition up for a statewide runs seemed irresponsible, or at least unwise."
Trevor Southerland
Yeah, and that's where you actually saw some of that play out in that Republican State Central Committee meeting and the gentleman's agreement that David mentioned earlier in the show, which we also found out is not in Roberts or Jefferson's rules. But you saw that play out where they were talking about, you know, how is the convention? Is it assembled? Is it unassembled? There was some confusion. And finally, Mitch Anderson said, "Well, you know, if you say convention that leaves it up to us to determine it later." And then there was an attempt to get it. It's all that. The bigger question though, is do people going to a Republican Convention believe COVID is a problem? If they don't believe it's a problem, then you know, it only looks bad to others. So that's the main issue is that you have to actually respect the virus enough to know that it's an issue.
Thomas Bowman
Hard to win when your whole party message is gonna get people killed.
David Ramadan
And that's the challenge that the Republican Party had this year. Now, how much of this atmosphere will exist in May or June of 2021, six months, five months after Trump has, you know, gone on his plane to Florida? That's to be determined. Had this been a convention today, the optics would be pretty bad. We saw a county in Virginia in a couple days that got cited by the board to get cited by the Health Department. And they claim that you know, having 100 people in the county boardroom, to support a resolution against masks is part of doing government business, and it's exempted under the Governor's order. So those are not good optics. And those are shenanigans that are not good for their own constituents or for themselves. Will this be the optics in several months into 2021? That remains to be unknown. And I hope for the sake of the country that that that will not be the case.
Michael Pope
Our next question comes from friend of the show Brad Kutner, who's a reporter with Courthouse News. He's wondering if Republicans are worried about Democrats using this as a line of attack. In other words, Virginia Republicans didn't even elect their candidate. Their party had a backroom meeting without any kind of input from the public. Trevor Southerland, I'll direct that question at you, is this decision to go with a convention rather than a primary going to be used by Democrats as a weapon, that to say, "You're not Democratic, and you're not open to input from the public, and you're the party of backroom deals?"
Trevor Southerland
I mean, it could be but most general voters don't care about that. They're not going to look too far to figure that out. The people who will care about that, however, are the Trump supporters, the Amanda Chase supporters, who, if they see her, you know, possibly not get on the ballot as an Independent, or even you know, using that just to say, "Hey, look, the Republican Party is corrupt. They're using these backroom methods, these backroom deals. They're acting like it's still the 1860s holding these conventions." You know, the Democratic Party, we're a big tent. We're open. We're willing to talk the Republican Party. It's just all about Establishment role. Sure, that'll work with some of those folks. With middle of the line voters, though I don't I don't think it really plays that much because they're more worried about the vaccine. They're worried about education. They're worried about the roads and their jobs.
Michael Pope
David Ramadan, are you worried about this decision on the convention being weaponized against the party?
David Ramadan
I think it is worrisome for Republicans to have a nominee elected by a convention, not for the reasons that your caller had questioned, not because Democrats could attack them on it for backroom deals, but because of what could happen in a convention, because of the mechanicals of holdings convention. And because any Republican, any party, Republican or Democrat, who would choose their nominee that way, would have given up the opportunity during the primary season, to reach out to more voters, to build their lists to be able to put a message out and they'll be running behind in messaging and reach to the general populace are going to vote in November. They'll be running behind the opposing party here it will be running behind the Democrat nominee.
Thomas Bowman
Hey, one quick announcement before we go, Transition Virginia has been invited by the moderators of R/Virginia on Reddit to do an AMA, an ask us anything thread on Reddit. It's not scheduled yet, but keep a lookout for that in the near future.
Michael Pope
So that's it for this episode of Transition Virginia. But if you have any comments or questions about what you've just heard, or maybe you want to drop us a line to tell us how much you really love our podcast, please write us an email at TransitionVApodcast@gmail.com. We might even read it on the air. Subscribe to Transition Virginia anywhere pods or cast follow the Transition Team on Twitter. You can find us also on Facebook or the website transitionvirginia.com. Don't forget to like and subscribe so you can enjoy the next episode of Transition Virginia.
