Punt

So this weekend, RPV’s State Central Committee intends to select a method of nomination for the 2017 statewide races.

They’d be wise to punt.  Here’s why:

It’s almost the start of the fourth quarter, and we’re on 4th and 16.  Quite literally, 16 yards back, according to the latest Roanoke College/IPOR poll:

Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has opened a 16-point lead over Trump among likely voters in Virginia (48 percent-32 percent).

Libertarian Gary Johnson received the support of 8 percent of likely voters, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein trailed the field with 3 percent, while 9 percent remain undecided.

Trump and Clinton were tied in the May Roanoke College Poll.

The content of the poll is interesting enough.  Trump is getting 4% — yes, 1, 2, 3, 4 percent — of the African-American vote.  Practically within the 3.5% MOE… which means apart from one or two people?  No one in the African American community is voting for Trump.

But I digress — this weekend RPV State Central would like to determine the nomination method for 2017 and potentially an open U.S. Senate seat.

The bottom line here is simple.

First, there is no “deal” and even if it existed, no presumed or imposed “deal” should be honored.  We don’t do deals… ask Bill Bolling about handshakes, deals, and the word of honor…

Second, past State Central Committees cannot bind future State Central Committees.  That’s a fact that anyone with even a basic knowledge of Roberts Rules would know.

Third… we don’t know what the post-November landscape is going to look like.  It is the extremity of foolishness to select a nomination method now without knowing what the landscape is.

Lastly, the possibility extending into a potentiality of a U.S. Senate nomination contest is becoming more apparent.  That is a logistics problem that SCC should begin to tackle in earnest and in the sunlight.  At the moment?  Who knows.

Longtime readers know that my proclivities are in favor of conventions.  There’s the Buckley Rule as well — nominate the most conservative candidate who can win.  Conventions deliver such candidates.

…but without knowing the battlefield, why would folks charge headlong into any nomination method in August?  It smacks of engineering an outcome, which naturally, there are forces out there who have been working tirelessly to do precisely that.

There is no existential need to select a nomination method straightaway, despite what folks might say to the contrary.  Heck, they’re going to yell “to the contrary!” and offer up all sorts of logistical nightmares… but there is nothing that cannot be accomplished in August that can’t be done in December.  At least, by professionals that is.

For SCC to presume that the U.S. Senate race is in the cards now only belies the fact that Trump is catastrophically losing this election.  On the other hand, to vote up a convention now is to walk blindly into an environment that believes the delegates actually represent a majority of voting Virginians… and the loss in November could be so catastrophic, the appeal to the people (scary thought for party apparatchiks, I know) will have an argument.

My thoughts?  Regardless as to the benefits of a primary to grow the party, the opposite case — a brutal and nasty primary showcase in a multi-candidate field — remains an omnipresent threat.

At a convention, the healing process occurs in real time, right there on the floor.  Candidates have to shake hands and endorse presumptive winners, and the party hypothetically emerges united the day of the convention.  In a primary, that process is tortured and long… and as 2016 has demonstrated, may not occur at all.

One other item to consider?  In a primary, a candidate could win it all with a mere plurality (see: Trump 2016), whereas in a convention a candidate is forced by design to aggregate a majority of the convention delegates present.  By design… conventions force the conversation.

Of course, both environments really depend on the people participating.  Or the leadership surrounding the candidates.  Or the leadership within the party.  Any missing piece… and the entire infrastructure falls apart… at least, what’s left of it.  Are we really there yet?  Has either a crushing November loss or a shocking November win really forced this issue?  Not yet… hence the wisdom of patience.

So punt.

We are 4th and 16, pinned against our goal line.  Buy some time, and let’s see what is in the cards in November.

There’s nothing wrong with being patient and letting the defense take the field.  After all, they do win championships.