Generally, Committee endorsement for Primary Elections is considered by most members to be a critical activity that finds the best candidates. Others have voiced concern that Committee People are easily swayed by leadership, thereby creating an “insider’s club” of party favorites.
Proponents of Primary Endorsement share that the big value is that it doesn’t just find the best candidate, it allows the “arena fighting” of contestants to occur on a small stage rather than on display for all constituents. And, this reduces the amount of dirt and division that the Democrats can use against Republican candidates in the General Election. The Endorsement Process is actually required in the By-Laws of the CCRC.
This year the CCRC included two County-wide meetings for the candidates of three potentially contested races to introduce themselves, and to engage in questions & answers. Approximately 60 Committee People participated in these events.
The meetings concluded with secret straw polls so that Candidates could gauge support, and decide if they should stay in the race. Several potential candidates removed themselves after each straw poll.
The CCRC By-Laws require that the entire Committee have an Endorsement Meeting on a specific day in February, in this case February 15nd. The By-Laws also require a small Endorsement Committee to interview and evaluate potential candidates. The objective of the Endorsement Committee is to evaluate the qualifications of candidates and their ability to win. Winning requires experience, ability, planning, funds, good support and a relatively clean background.
The Endorsement Committee is explicitly not comprised of the Party Executives, but by a mix of active Committee People. They provide written and verbal information to the entire committee, proposing for each competitive race whether to endorse and who to endorse. Note that a competitive race is any race where more than one Republican is seeking the office and has asked to be endorsed. Also, the CCRC does not endorse for any elections below the County Row Office level, such as School Board or Township positions.
So, after much time and effort by volunteers, the Annual Endorsement meeting arrives, people are checked in, ballots distributed, speeches made, and Q&A Sessions are again run for each candidate in a competitive race. The first vote for every race is IF the entire Committee wants to endorse for that specific race. If so, then there is a secret vote as to which candidate they support. At the end of the secret voting, which might take several rounds per the By-Laws, if there is no candidate that gets over 60% of the vote, then there is no endorsement for that Primary. If a candidate does get over 60%, then the Republican Committee endorses them, and all of the Committee People are bound by the By-Laws to support them.
In this way, the will of the CCRC – the will of a super-majority of its members – are democratically voted and acted upon. There is a strong level of support for this process within the County Party, though it requires a lot of work by its volunteers.
This years meeting resulted in just one endorsement for a contested race, that of Alyssa Knisely Holstay for County Prothonotary. All of the un-contested County Row Officer Candidates were also endorsed.
