This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Sept. 30, 2011 - Fearing the national consequences, the Missouri Republican Party's state committee voted at an emergency meeting Thursday to rely on a caucus system in 2012 to allocate the state's presidential delegates.
Party leaders deemed the move the only option after the Missouri Senate failed to act during the special session to approve a bill -- passed by the House -- that would have moved Missouri's presidential primary to March 6.
Missouri's Feb. 7 date runs afoul of both major parties' mandate that all but four states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina) must wait until March 2012 to hold presidential primaries or caucuses. Offenders risk having their convention delegations cut in half.
The special-session measure was needed because Gov. Jay Nixon had vetoed an earlier bill, passed during this year's regular session, that moved the presidential primary and contained unrelated provisions that he found objectionable. The General Assembly opted against attempting an override.
A later vote to move the primary will be too late for Republicans because Saturday is the party's deadline for submitting an acceptable system for awarding delegates.
"The Missouri Republican Party is committed to ensuring that the governor's veto of the elections bill and the General Assembly's failure to move our presidential primary will not disrupt the national nominating process," said David Cole, chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, in a statement Thursday.
"A caucus will continue to protect the rights of Missourians to select the Republican nominee for president -- and any self-declared Republican who is registered to vote in Missouri has the ability to participate in the caucus process," he added.
A spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party said late Thursday that party leaders are still examining the matter and have yet to decide what to do.
Both state parties already use a caucus system to select presidential delegates. What Thursday's action does, for Republicans, is use the caucuses to award delegates to the various presidential hopefuls as well.
The state Republican Party can unilaterally make such a change, without legislative approval, because Missouri's primary law doesn't require that the voting results be used to award delegates.
The Republicans' first caucus rounds will be March 17 on the county level, with the second rounds April 21 at the congressional district level. The final bloc of delegates would be chosen at the state party's June 2 convention.
Democrats have a similar set of caucuses scheduled, but they still are expected to be used solely to choose the delegates -- not whom the delegates support.
The issue of when, or if, Missouri holds a presidential primary -- or if it counts -- is less of a concern for Democrats in 2012 because President Barack Obama is not expected to have a major primary opponent.
For Republicans in 2012, the caucus system could pose dangers for establishment activists and offer opportunities for party renegades.
Just ask Republican veterans of Missouri's last such caucus setup, in 1996.
Returning to Its Caucus Roots
Until 2000, Missouri was a caucus state for presidential contests. The sole exception had been in 1988, when Missouri Democrats -- who then controlled the General Assembly -- persuaded then-Gov. John Ashcroft, a Republican, that a statewide presidential primary would attract more candidates' interest.
Missouri Democrats also sought to boost the prospects of their favorite son, then-U.S. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, D-St. Louis, who was making his first bid for the White House.
After 1988, state Republicans pressed for a return to caucuses, citing the cost of holding a statewide primary. Democrats complied in 1992 and 1996.
But the GOP caucuses in 1996 caused huge headaches for the GOP establishment, whose leaders then included Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, new junior Sen. John Ashcroft and former Sen. John C. Danforth.
That year, Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., was the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination. His best-known rivals were two social conservatives: commentators Pat Buchanan and Alan Keyes.
Organized armies of social conservatives loyal to Buchanan and Keyes mobbed many caucus sites, including the one in west St. Louis County's 2nd congressional district.
(The Buchanan force's leaders included John Brunner Sr., father of businessman John Brunner, who is preparing to launch a 2012 bid for the U.S. Senate.)
Statewide, Buchanan pulled a surprise upset in the caucuses over Dole.
A furious Bond was all over the TV news, declaring that Missouri needed to become a presidential primary state for good.
Dole's forces were able to recoup some gains in later caucus rounds (there are three), but Buchanan and Keyes still held enough delegates so that Missouri sent a split delegation to the 1996 GOP national convention in San Diego.
Crowell Leads Back-to-caucus Movement
Missouri's 1996 caucus experience is arguably the closest to what could happen in 2012, with crowds of well-organized tea party groups likely to show up at caucus sites.
Such efforts could help tea party-favored presidential candidates such as Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and hurt Mitt Romney, who's closer to many in the Republican establishment.
The caucuses would determine who snags Missouri's 52 Republican delegates and 49 alternates to the Republican National Convention.
Under the GOP setup, 24 would be selected at the second-round caucuses held in the congressional district caucuses, and 25 would be selected at the state convention. The other three delegates would be the state party chairman and Missouri GOP's national committeeman and national committeewoman.
The Missouri Senate had the votes during this month's special session to pass the primary bill, but leaders opted against forcing a roll-call vote over the objections of state Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau.
Crowell favored returning to a caucus system, citing the costs of a primary. He appeared to be prepared to launch into a filibuster during the brief time that the primary bill was on the Senate floor earlier this month.
Crowell got some help from state Sen. Tim Green, D-Florissant, who contended during the brief floor discussion that he preferred that Missouri keep its presidential primary on Feb. 7 to get more attention.
Missouri is not the only state in danger of violating the national parties' rules, and it's unclear how those parties will handle the renegade states. Florida is chief among them.
In any event, Missouri Republicans' action means that the state presidential primary, at least on the GOP side, will be symbolic -- and potentially mean little when the caucus system kicks off on March 17.
Missouri's Primaries, 2000 and Beyond
In 2000, Missouri Republicans arguably got the most benefit from a return to a presidential primary in March. Then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain engaged in a vigorous contest, with plenty of personal appearances.
To generate even more interest, Republicans made Missouri's GOP primary a winner-take-all affair. The Democratic presidential primary allocated delegates based on a candidate's share of the votes.
Bush won in 2000, attracting more votes than Democrat Al Gore in his parallel primary win over Sen. Bill Bradley (a Crystal City native). The larger Republican turnout in the primary was touted by then-state party chair Ann Wagner as a sign of greater Republican grassroots energy.
Bush did narrowly carry the state that November.
In 2004, with Bush facing no major primary challenge, some Republican legislator wanted to return to the caucus system. Democrats prevailed, and Missouri went ahead with its presidential primary -- which was moved to February to generate more candidate interest, and to mesh with some local elections.
The presidential battle was all on the Democratic side, with Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards each making last-ditch appearances in the St. Louis area.
Missouri's 2008 presidential primaries, also in February, were barn-burners for both parties. The state saw a parade of presidential hopefuls, Republican and Democratic.
On the Democratic side, then-Sen. Barack Obama edged out Sen. Hillary Clinton -- but the victory was so narrow the two ended up with identical numbers of delegates (36 apiece) at the presidential convention.
In the 2008 GOP primary fight, McCain narrowly defeated former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in Missouri. Because of the winner-take-all rule, McCain got all the delegates.
If Missouri had been a caucus state in 2008, the Missouri victors in both parties might have been different.
