Does the GOP Want to Appoint Presidential Candidates Rather Than Primary Them?: GOP Primaries on the Chopping Block

The GOP primary and caucus process may have seen its last breath as the Republican establishment played a dirty game to keep Ron Paul out and Mitt for Brains Romney in. We all know the rule changes, cheating, and shenanigans that went on in the 2012 process, and now the entire process may just be done away with as the Republican establishment chooses their candidate for America's elected king, taking away the power of the people who declare themselves Republicans to decide.

The attack on the primary process doesn't end there. The Republican establishment is looking to Missouri where Todd Akin was the primary winner and soon embarrassed the party with his rape statements. It could be primaries for Republican House members and Senators could be a thing of the past.

There is another target the Republican establishment wants to assassinate when killing the primary process--conservatism. They blame conservative values as one of the reasons Republicans are losing elections.


Jonathan Martin at Politico reports on the thinking of some GOP party leaders in DC. The problem as they see it is the primary and caucus process.

The intra-party contests, or threat thereof, have become the original sin that explains many of the party’s woes in the minds of GOP leaders. It’s the primaries that push their presidential nominees far to the right (see “self-deportation” and “47 percent”); produce lackluster Senate candidates (Todd Akin has almost become a one-word shorthand); and, as seen most vividly in the last two weeks, dissuade scores of gerrymandered House members from face-saving compromise while politically emasculating their speaker.

What to do about the primaries has become Topic A in many a post-election Republican soul-searching session, and now the first steps are being taken to address the issue. For Senate Republicans, that means a modified return to their 2010 posture of openly playing in primaries. A retiring House Republican is starting a super PAC to help House members challenged from the right. And an RNC commission is mulling over changes to the party’s presidential primary.

In Southwest Missouri, we would label this is the protect Billy law (Billy Long). This is just more proof in my mind the Republican party is headed in the wrong direction, and I really don't want much to do with it.