The Changing Face of Delegate Selection

DESPITE A HEAVILY FRONT-LOADED presidential nominating system this election year, in which more than half of the country voted before the end of March, few of the presidential primaries selected actual delegates to be sent to the Republican National Convention.

While states have different methods of choosing their delegates, most come up with their final list of delegates following state conventions in May and June. So, an early convention preview provides an opportunity to look at only a few states for delegate patterns.

Those states that selected their delegates by mid-April provided a snapshot of the Republican delegations to the convention. A consistent theme was the states' desire to have notable representation of all party factions, including women and minorities.

Another pattern was the presence of party regulars among the delegates chosen. This comes as no surprise, since the key to Texas Gov. George W. Bush's victory in many states was party leaders, county chairmen and state legislators who jumped on his bandwagon early.

Arizona Sen. John McCain's delegates, on the other hand, are projected to include more grassroots organizers and fewer party leaders because he had less establishment support.

California California's 162 delegates and 162 alternates (three delegates and three alternates for each of the state's 52 congressional districts) will be made up of a "very diverse" group from the range of the Republican ideological spectrum: abortion opponents and supporters as well as gun control advocates and opponents, said Bush campaign delegation director Scott Sadler.

Rather than ideological slant, the primary criteria for choosing delegates rested on how involved people were in helping Bush win California's March 7 winner-take-all primary. "We tried to make it so that people who work the hardest get to be delegates," Sadler said.

A cursory look at the delegate names also shows a wide array of Anglo-Saxon, Hispanic and Asian surnames, reflecting California's broad range of ethnicities.

The Bush camp also went out of its way to recruit McCain supporters, such as California Secretary of State Bill Jones, who will be a delegate for the 19th Congressional District.

New York In 1996, at the last Republican National Convention, New York GOPers were at the height of their dominance in state politics -- they occupied the governorship for the first time in two decades and the mayor's office in New York City. Not to mention the powerful Republican delegation being sent down to Washington, D.C., most notably House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald B.H. Solomon and US. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato.

Times have changed slightly in the four years since then. Republicans still hold the governorship, as well as the mayorship of New York City. However, there are now two Democratic US. senators, and several key GOP US. Reps. have retired.

Nothing exhibits that more than the outcome of the March 7 primary victory in which Bush, the state GOP-backed presidential candidate, won by a surprisingly narrow margin over McCain.

As a result, the delegates are split between Bush and McCain supporters -- a significant difference from 1996 when all of the state's delegates were pledged to former Sen. Bob Dole. This year, 68 of the delegates chosen in the March 7 primary are Bush backers, while 25 of them are pledged to McCain. The remaining eight at-large delegates were to be chosen at the May 30 state committee meeting.

Elected statewide GOP officials, much of the state legislature and a host of party leaders help make up the Bush delegation. Those delegates include Lt. Gov. Mary 0. Donohue; National Committeeman and chairman of the Nassau County Republican Committee Joseph Mondello; four-term US. Rep. Rick Lazio and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

The group of 25 delegates who were elected as McCain supporters lacks the number of high-profile names in Bush's camp. "The nature of the political game is that you are not going to get many party officials to go along with the non-party choice, so McCain had to go our and find other registered Republicans," said Lee Daghlian, the director of public information for the New York State Board of Elections.

The one notable exception is Guy V. Molinari, Staten Island borough president and US. representative from 1981 to 1990. Molinari's daughter Susan also represented the 13th District, which takes in Staten Island and part of southwest Brooklyn from 1991 to 1997.

Maryland The Republican establishment's strong support for Bush's candidacy is evident in Maryland, where his March 7 primary win ensured him the overwhelming support of the state's delegates attending the Republican National Convention.

The 24 delegates that were elected on March 7 were all Bush supporters except for one, Republican Rep. Wayne T Gilchrest who threw his support behind McCain's candidacy. However, Gilchrest will be required to vote for Bush at the convention because his congressional district went to Bush.

Seven other at-large Bush delegates were to be chosen at the GOP convention on June 10.

The slate of Bush delegates selected for the ballot was chosen by prominent party member Ellen R. Sauerbrey, the Republican National Committeewoman for the state GOP, 1994 and 1998 party nominee for governor and the head of the Bush campaign in the state.

Sauerbrey said she was basically given "free rein" in choosing the slate. She added that some of the factors she considered were the candidate's prospects for being elected, rewarding those who had worked hard for the campaign and making sure there was representation by women and minorities among the list. "We were trying to get a balance of people," said Sauerbrey.

The delegation is made up of grassroots supporters, many elected officials and party officials, with at least seven women and at least five African Americans among the group. Party officials say the delegation takes in a cross-section of the state's GOP from those delegates who lean conservative on social issues to those delegates who are more moderate.

Among the well-known delegates elected was state GOP Chairman Dick Bennett, a moderate Republican who has had a long career in the party establishment. He was appointed by former President George Bush as U.S. Attorney to Maryland. From 1986 until 1990 he served as chairman of the Baltimore County Republican Party. He was the 1994 Republican candidate for Attorney General of Maryland and in 1998 he was selected by Sauerbrey as her running mate for lieutenant governor of Maryland, in an unsuccessful bid.

Louisiana There were no hard and fast rules by which Louisiana selected its pool of 29 delegates. A desire to participate and a history of party dedication sufficed as criteria. And the group-consisting of eight at-large delegates, three delegates from each of the state's seven districts and an equal number of alternates -- is said to be representative of the state's regional makeup.

"We're Republicans, we don't believe in quotas," said Gov. Mike Foster's political director Susan Bonnett, who participated in the selection process as a representative of the governor.

Each of the 29 who will take to the convention floor in Philadelphia will rally behind the one candidate to which they have all been allocated -- Bush.

In Louisiana, delegates were allocated only to those presidential candidates who won at least 10 percent of the statewide vote. Beyond that, delegates were to be assigned on a proportional basis. By the time the state's March 14 presidential preference primary rolled around, McCain had already brought his campaign to a halt, and Bush became the only candidate to secure the necessary 10 percent.

Bonnett said that she and the committee of three others made a concerted effort to keep a balance in the group, avoiding an overabundance of elected officials. The outcome of the process is an assembly of 29 grassroots-level activists, major party donors, Bush loyalists and longtime GOP stalwarts.

For example, Bollinger Shipyards CEO and President Donald T "Boysie" Bollinger is a veritable convention junkie, having served as a delegate on six previous occasions, New Orleans attorney Donald Ensenat counts himself as a close personal friend of the GOP presidential candidate -- the two were roommates and fraternity brothers at Yale.

As for the Bush camp, Bonnett explains that its role was to "submit a preliminary list of potential delegates, and then go over the final list to make certain that no one who should have been included was overlooked." But the Republican community in Louisiana is fairly cohesive, and the committee was quite familiar with all of the applicants. In the end, only a couple of interested parties were not selected to attend the convention.

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