RSS Feed of the blog

Contributors:

Reporter William March has covered state and national politics since 1994. Email

Reporter Christian M. Wade has covered the City of Tampa since 2008. Email

Reporter Mike Salinero has covered Hillsborough County government for The Tampa Tribune since 2007. Email

Reporter Lindsay Peterson has been a general assignment reporter at the Tampa Tribune since 2005, focusing on higher education since 2009. Email

Tribune Politics Coverage

Florida Political Blogs:

• State Of Sunshine
• Pushing Rope
• Interstate4Jamming
• News Service of Florida
• FLA Politics
• Sayfie Review/

More Resources:

• TBO.com Home Page
• TBO.com Politics
• TBO.com News Updates
• Live Traffic Updates
• TBO.com Communities

Most Recent Entries

• Nelson: Obama birth control compromise “seems to solve the problem”
• Sharpe suspending campaign
• Sharpe to make announcement, may be out of House race
• Largo Military Museum Gets New Name, Mission
• Planned Parenthood: Polls show Catholics, voters favor contraception coverage
• Weatherford denies any attempt to undermine West
• Michelle Obama to tour Florida for healthy eating
• Pentagon Co-Spokesman Changed Trim After Boss’ Haircuts
• Brig. Gen. Becomes Highest-Ranking Death in Afghanistan
• Special Operations Command To Go Para-Commando Over University of Tampa
• Air Force To Cut Nearly 300 Planes, But None From MacDill
• POTUS Veterans Job Act: Billions To Hire Vets As Law Enforcement, First Reponders, Park Workers
• Will Israel Really Strike Iran? SECDEF Won’t Comment On Ignatius Assertion
• College Scholarship Available To a Lucky Family At MacDIll
• CENTCOM Boss Meets with New Pakistan Ambassador

More

• Breaking News
• Command Post Tampa
• Fact Finders - Databay Blog
• Guestbook: Remembering The Fallen Soldiers
• Fresh Squeezed Politics
• Political Safari

Monthly Archives

• Breaking News
• Command Post Tampa
• Fact Finders - Databay Blog
• Guestbook: Remembering The Fallen Soldiers
• Fresh Squeezed Politics
• Political Safari

GOP Primary May Be Winner-Take-All

Posted Aug 17, 2007 by William March

Updated Aug 17, 2007 at 03:29 PM

There was one little-noticed part of the state Republican Party’s action on its national conventional delegate selection plan last week: If the state party incurs a penalty because the state primary is too early, then all its national convention delegates will go to a single candidate.

That would be a significant change. It would mean, in effect, that second place doesn’t count, and would help the Florida frontrunner—currently, Rudy Giuliani.

Here’s what happened and why:

Florida’s Jan. 29 primary violates national party rules intended to prevent states from moving their primaries earlier and earlier. Those party rules specify the penalty is that the state loses half its normal 114 delegates to the national convention.

Last weekend, at the urging of party Chairman Jim Greer, the party voted to fight those penalties, take a full delegation to the Minneapolis-St. Paul convention and engage in a floor fight if necessary to seat them all.

But also at Greer’s suggestion, the party adopted another change. If they are forced to accept a reduced delegation of 57, all 57 delegates will vote for whoever comes in first in the state primary—a “winner-take-all” plan.

The party’s normal delegate selection plan is winner-take-all by congressional districts—any candidate who wins in one of the state’s 25 congressional districts gets that district’s three delegates. That gives a candidate who can’t win statewide a chance to come out with some delegates. After the 75 district delegates are allocated, the remaining 39 at-large delegates go to the statewide winner.

Greer argued the change is necessary so that Florida will remain a major delegate prize even if its delegation is reduced.