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Looks like next weekend's California Party Republican convention may have a significant impact on the Presidential primary.


Conservatives Move To Tweak McCain, Schwarzenegger Primary


Disdainful of party heretics like Sen. John McCain, conservative California Republicans are devising a plan to short-circuit the early presidential primary when they meet this weekend in Sacramento. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says a Feb. 5 California primary would make the state a player in national politics once again, but political analysts believe it also would give a big advantage to established candidates like McCain.
Assemblyman Chuck DeVore and his conservative colleagues are drafting a bylaw change that would allow Republican Party Central Committee members to pick a big portion of their presidential delegates in early February 2008, instead of just holding a statewide election among the entire party. The state GOP leadership is generally more conservative than the rest of the party, and such a rule change would certainly dilute McCain's support and quell whatever momentum he had gained.
"The activists on the state central committee here have still not forgiven him (McCain) for the McCain-Feingold assault on the First Amendment nor do they appear comfortable with his incoherent philosophical agenda," DeVore told the Washington Times. "Senator McCain seems to be more a product of the New York Times than of the party of Ronald Reagan."
Rather than spend $90 million on a special statewide election, DeVore told Political Muscle, about 1,600 members of the Central Committee could divide into caucuses and select their presidential delegates during their winter 2008 meeting. They would do this by Congressional district, so that 53 of the party's 165 delegates would be chosen in the critical early weeks of February. The rest would be chosen in June during the regular primary. This, he says, would give California a voice in the early stages of the primary and allow California GOP voters to make a decision as well.
DeVore said he has read the Republican National Committee rules multiple times and "it became very clear to me that it's entirely within our power as a party to change our bylaws to allow a portion of the delegates, or all of them if we wanted to," to be picked at the state convention. DeVore said the presidential primary is really designed to push through a weakening of the state's term limits law in favor of Democratic lawmakers and possibly Schwarzenegger.
"Ninety million dollars is a big cost for a stand-alone election for the sole purpose of allowing people to stay in office longer," DeVore said.
Such a bylaw change would take a 2/3 vote of delegates at next weekend's California Republican Party convention. If approved, it might give some Republican lawmakers less incentive to vote for Schwarzenegger's early presidential primary when it comes up. But if the Legislature does approve a full-blown Feb. 5 primary, DeVore said his bylaw change would not be implemented.