RNC moving to condense 2016 primary calendar

Given the long and often drawn out process in 2008 and 2012 of the primary horse race, the Republican National Committee is hoping to condense their primary calendar to give the eventual nominee more time campaigning and less time fighting other Republican contenders.

Report from Politico:

The Republican National Committee is taking steps at its winter meeting this week to try condensing the 2016 presidential nominating calendar, with the goal of starting later and ending earlier than in 2012.

Chairman Reince Priebus wants the party’s 2016 convention to happen between June 27 and July 18 – compared to the week of August 27 in 2012. The official date will be announced this spring, and the location will be selected at a summer meeting.

The party’s rules committee approved a handful of significant changes Thursday, which are likely to be adopted by the full 168-member governing body on Friday.

Among them: Stiffer penalties for states that schedule primaries before March 1; a requirement that states award delegates proportionally, rather than on a winner-take-all basis, before March 15; and a rule that delegates be selected 45 days before the national convention, as opposed to the current 35 days, to encourage states to wrap up as earlier.

Only four “early states” are allowed to hold elections before March 1: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. At the convention in Tampa, the committee voted to award just 12 delegates to any states that ignore this rule. The committee voted Thursday to make the penalty even stricter for smaller states, to dissuade them from attempting to move up.

Republican leaders in the four earliest-voting states express confidence they will now be able to hold off on voting until February of 2016, compared to January in 2012.

During the 2012 cycle, every state that voted in March awarded delegates proportionally based on the share of the vote each candidate received. That extended the nominating fight into late April and frustrated Mitt Romney’s campaign. So, at the convention, rules were changed to allow a “winner-take-all” system, in which any state could award every one of its delegates to whoever won the primary.

There are a few theories as to who this helps the most. The first theory says that an “electable” nominee, perhaps like a Mitt Romney, would be able to avoid staking out very conservative positions to win this lengthy primary process. On the other hand, perhaps without and extended vetting, the more moderate candidates won’t be able to convince voters they truly will carry the conservative mantle.

The major advantage this calendar change would provide the eventual nominee is the ability to begin campaigning and spending general election funds much earlier than they could in 2012. During the last cycle, with President Obama as the incumbent, his campaign was not held back by campaign finance laws regarding the primary process.

On the other hand, does this jibe with the centralization of power to the RNC which began in 2012 at the convention which sought to limit grassroots influence over the candidates and platform?