RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A new, more conservative ruling body of Virginia’s Republican Party on Friday reversed last fall’s decision to nominate the party’s gubernatorial candidate in an open primary, opting instead for a closed convention of credentialed Republicans.
The 47-31 GOP central committee vote was a blow to Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and his supporters, including Gov. Bob McDonnell and U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and a victory for conservative Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a hero of Virginia’s tea party movement.
Bolling and McDonnell had both asked the committee to stick with the October decision to hold a primary next spring rather than a convention.
Neither Bolling nor Cuccinelli attended the 90-minute vote in a tiny room jammed with committee members, party consultants and activists and a handful of reporters.
In a written statement afterward, Bolling said the switch will “effectively disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Virginia Republicans, and all active duty military personnel, from participating in the nomination of our candidates.”
Noah Wall, spokesman for Cuccinelli’s political action committee, declined specific comment on the committee’s decision.
“We have made it clear from the beginning that we were prepared to run and win in whichever method of nomination the state central committee decided was best for the party,” Wall said in an emailed, one-paragraph statement.
Supporters of the convention argued that Republicans nominated in conventions fare better in fall elections. Conventions also prevent outsiders from meddling in Republican nominations in a state where primaries are open to all voters, and they don’t saddle taxpayers with election costs.
Primaries are paid by state and local governments, but the party has to cover all the expenses for leasing event venues capable of seating up to 10,000 people. The 2009 convention that nominated McDonnell, Bolling and Cuccinelli cost the party nearly $160,000.
Del. Brenda Pogge, R-James City County, said that every primary “amounts to an unfunded mandate on our localities.”
Morton Blackwell, one of three Virginia members of the Republican National Committee, argued for a convention by saying Republicans competing in primaries spend millions of dollars in television ads doing the Democrats’ work by tearing each other down.
“Our principal purpose here is to facilitate the election of our candidates and analysis after analysis shows clearly that we win when we nominate by conventions and we are less likely to win when we nominate by a primary,” Blackwell said.
But party treasurer Brian Plum said conventions are financially crippling to the state party.
“If we’re going to have a convention, we’ve got to find a way to pay for it,” said Brian Plum, a committee member and state party treasurer. “We are a party with less cash than we have liabilities right now.”
The most passionate debate, however, was over the inability of troops on active duty to have a say at a convention.
“It’s a fact that active-duty military can’t participate in partisan conventions,” said Wayne Osmore of Enon.
“Let’s try to remember who it is we’re disenfranchising,” said Del. John Cosgrove of Chesapeake, whose district has a heavy active-duty Navy and Army population.
At one point, arguing became so pervasive in the room that party chairman Pat Mullins had to gavel the meeting back to order with an appeal to a common purpose.
“We are all friends here,” he said, straining to be understood over the din. “The enemy is Barack Obama, Tim Kaine and the liberal media.”
