Will Ct. matter in GOP presidential race?

Thanks to changes in Connecticut's primary schedule and the state GOP's delegate rules, Republican leaders hope the state could play a meaningful role in any prolonged battle for their party's presidential nomination.

"It may turn out to be a very relevant contest," Jerry Labriola, state Republican chairman, said Monday on the eve of the Iowa Republican caucuses. "We may find ourselves in the mix."

But there is a very, very big emphasis on the "may."

"I'm betting this thing will be over by the end of the month and it won't matter when we hold our primary," said Scott McLean, political science professor at Quinnipiac University.

In the past, Connecticut has held its presidential primary on the first Tuesday in February. But during the 2011 session, the General Assembly unanimously voted to shift the date to the last Tuesday in April -- April 24 this year.

The prospects are dim that many of the seven major GOP presidential hopefuls would be around by then, with the early contests designed to swiftly whittle the field down in early January and February.

Nearly two dozen states were urged to alter their primary schedules by the national Republican and Democratic parties who, frustrated with a system of front-loaded contests, sought to spread out the process.

"What both parties agreed on was 2008 just wasn't acceptable," said Josh Putnam, assistant professor of political science at Davidson College in North Carolina. Putnam also follows presidential primaries on his FrontloadingHQ blog.

According to Frontloading HQ, about 15 other states hold primaries after Connecticut's, with Utah wrapping up the process on June 26.

Connecticut lawmakers also used the opportunity to establish an informal regional primary, scheduling voting for the same day as New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware in a bid to draw candidates' attention to the Northeast.

"The idea is you have some sort of critical mass," said Sen. Gayle Slossberg, D-Milford, co-chairwoman of the Legislature's government administration and elections committee. "To the extent candidates are going to be campaigning, if they're going to be in one state and the neighboring state is also having a primary, it makes sense for them to take a swing through there, as well."

Putnam said the regional clustering was inspired by the excitement generated in February 2008 around the same-day so-called "Potomac" Democratic presidential primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., between then-Democratic rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

"Small regional primaries are an attempt to recapture that lightning in a bottle, so to speak," Putnam said.

Labriola said he was initially cool to moving Connecticut's primary to April.

"You relate back to 2008, nothing in April mattered in our party," Labriola said.

But he came around in part because of recent rule changes within the state GOP. The party used to award all of its national convention delegates to the winner of the presidential primary. This year, that "winner takes all" approach only triggers if a candidate wins over 50 percent of the vote. Otherwise, the contenders divvy up delegates based on the proportion of votes each received.

And in a tight race, those delegates can matter. Labriola noted Connecticut Democrats already use such a system, which state Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo agreed is what drew both Obama and Clinton to visit the state in 2008.

"I do believe it made a difference in getting the candidates in," DiNardo said.

Labriola said typically, Republican presidential contenders only visit on fundraising trips to wealthy Greenwich.

But under the new system, Labriola said, "you come into Connecticut and grab five, six, eight or nine delegates by showing up."

McLean agrees with Connecticut's effort to regionalize the presidential primary and to hold it in April. But the entire system nationally remains geared toward early decision making, he said, which will continue to result in the likelihood of meaningless primaries being staged throughout the rest of the season.

Putnam said it remains too soon to tell whether Connecticut will emerge as an important player in 2012. But he said even if only two GOP contenders remain by April, the state may enjoy some attention under the Republican Party's new delegate rules.

"There would be something up for grabs," Putnam said. "If it's very close then that's possible."

Source: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Will-Ct-matter-in-GOP-presidential-race-2437352.php

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