In case you missed the official call for the upcoming State Central Committee meeting for this coming Saturday, you may have missed the one small line that sums up the entire meeting.
2013 Nomination Process for Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General
That’s right everyone, as if the November 2010 meeting determining the nominating process for the 2012 US Senate nomination wasn’t early enough, the State Central Committee has decided to go even earlier to…. get ahead of the 2013 election cycle (I can only guess that’s the reason for this absurdly early vote)
For the past two or three weeks phone lines and emails have been heating up across the commonwealth as supporters for conventions and supporters for primaries whip votes for each side. Some would describe this as a Bill Bolling v Ken Cuccinelli vote, as both have been involved in locality and state central seat election bids over the last year, but that’s putting the cart before the horse. Only one of them has filed to run for governor, and both men would say confidently they would be comfortable with either nominating process.
There’s also would-be candidates for Lt Governor who have a vested interest in this vote, as well as potential candidates for Attorney General, should Cuccinelli back away from his earlier re-election sentiments.
As always, this humble author is firmly in favor of a convention; strictly from a philosophical standpoint, having no bearing on one candidate or potential candidate or another. I’m in the ‘we’re fiscal conservatives, we don’t make taxpayers pay for our nominating process’ camp, though I empathize with the military absentee aspect as well. Thankfully for my health, email account and cell phone bill, I don’t have a vote on Saturday.
The bigger question is what is gained by having this vote so early in the first place, the same questions that were raised last year around this time when it became known that State Central intended to vote on the 2012 process at the Advance. Worse, this time around, not only are we not waiting for the 2012 election process to play out, we’re not even waiting for the 2011 election cycle to be complete before voting. Little if anything is gained by having a vote now, particularly before a crucial election. However, a vote does have the potential to fracture (very very slightly) the party five weeks before voters go to the polls and Republicans take back the State Senate. At least last year it was after election day (albeit two weeks), but even that vote should have waited another six months, as should this one. At this rate, our nominating process for the 2014 US Senate seat will be taking place right around the beginning of the summer.
I love Virginia, but we’re not determining a nominating process for the presidency. Voting on a convention or a primary more than two years ahead of an election just baffles me, and no has explained to me why such votes have to take place so early. I hear of individual State Central members who agree, yet here we are again, three days away from another vote.
And for those of you who didn’t know this vote was taking place? Call your State Central representatives and tell them your thoughts on primary/convention/early voting.
