Primary Loyalty

So, are you ready to pledge your allegiance to the Republican Party?

Forget about the electoral mechanics of actually implementing such a process in a state-run election, the state central committee of the Republican Party of Virginia has approved a “Statement of Republican Party Affiliation”.

The Daily Press’ Travis Fain reports:

The form will not require voters to promise support for the party’s eventual nominee, which was planned, then withdrawn, ahead of the 2012 presidential elections.

“This is 180 degrees away from where we were in 2012,” RPV spokesman David D’Onofrio said. “This is just a very simple statement of intent. It is innocuous as possible.”

The statement reads: “Virginia does not register voters by political party. Virginia law allows a political party to ask that voters in its presidential primary affiliate with that party. My signature below indicates that I am a Republican.”
The Democratic Party plans no such paperwork for the March 1 primary.

Of course, even enacting the innocuous gave Democrats the fodder they were looking for:

“Unlike Republicans, we don’t believe in putting up barriers to prevent people from exercising their fundamental right to vote,” Democratic Party of Virginia spokesman Stephen Carter said in an email.

Obviously, this effort by the state party’s governing body is meant to strike a balance between convention proponents and those desiring an open process. But when there is no registration by party in Virginia, this idea of imposing an oath – and a toothless one at that – when there is very little hope of actually effectively implementing the program on March 1, shows, at best, that some on the RPV’s committee are woefully out of touch or outright ignorant of the electioneering process or, at worst, that they could care less about the voter and attracting them to the GOP.

An extremely valid argument can be made for closed primaries, but requiring an oath of allegiance in an open primary? That will bring exactly zero people to the Republican party and likely result in driving more people away.

Politically, this might be a maneuver that is directed at presidential aspirant Donald Trump and his supporters, as he famously would not raise his hand in the Fox News debate professing loyalty to the GOP should he not be the nominee.

Regardless, if the motivation of the RPV’s state central committee is to further alienate the body politic from the party, this was an excellent first step.