Power in the 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention Nora Kay Ankrom

Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 1-1-2011 Horse-Trading in Smoke-Filled Rooms: Power in the 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention Nora Kay Ankrom Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the American Politics Commons Recommended Citation Ankrom, Nora Kay, "Horse-Trading in Smoke-Filled Rooms: Power in the 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention" (2011). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. Paper 8. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. HORSE‐TRADING IN SMOKE‐FILLED ROOMS: POWER IN THE 2008 WEST VIRGINIA REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CONVENTION A Thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Political Science by Nora Kay Ankrom Approved by Dr. Jamie Warner, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Dr. George Davis, Ph.D. Dr. Jess Morrissette, Ph.D. Marshall University May 2011 Table of Contents List of Figures p. iii List of Appendices p. iv Abstract p. v Preface pp. 1-6 Introduction pp.7-23 Chapter One – History pp. 24-51 Chapter Two – Theoretical Perspectives pp. 52-78 Chapter Three – Three-Dimensional Power pp. 79-98 Chapter Four – Two-Dimensional Power pp. 99-112 Chapter Five – One-Dimensional Power pp. 113-120 Conclusions pp. 121-126 ii Figures Figure 1 – Republican Party Structure p. 27 Figure 2 – Timeline for the 2008 WVGOP Presidential Convention p. 32 Figure 3 – County-by-County Breakdown of Delegates pp. 36-37 Figure 4 – Divisions of Conflict p. 100 iii Appendices Appendix A – Resolution to hold a convention p. 127 Appendix B –Official convention rules pp. 128-139 Appendix C – Preliminary guide to the convention p. 140 iv Abstract Horse-Trading in Smoke-Filled Rooms: Power in the 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention Nora Kay Ankrom The 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention was the first of its kind and presents an intriguing case study of power in politics. A small percentage of West Virginians are Republican and an even smaller percentage of those Republicans participate in politics. Based on this situation, the elite members of the West Virginia Republican Party would be expected to produce their candidate as the winner of the state’s first ever presidential convention. This, however, was not the case. A perceived second tier candidate claimed victory instead, much to the anger and dismay of the party regulars. This study interprets and explains this upset with three theories of power. I argue that three dimensions of power were at play and that an understanding of these dimensions allows readers to comprehend West Virginia Republican politics, the 2008 convention, and future actions within the party. v Preface This thesis is a detailed examination and explanation of the 2008 West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention and its result, Mike Huckabee’s victory. In the national political scene at the time, this was merely a blip on the media’s radar; however, in West Virginia, in the Republican party, and in my own life, the convention was monumental and would have effects reaching further than any of its participants could have predicted. The fall of 2007 marked the beginning of my last year as an undergraduate political science student, the birth of my first child, and the unexpected end of my husband Michael’s job with the West Virginia Republican Party. Needless to say, voluntarily heading up a campaign to win the state’s first ever Republican presidential convention was the last thing on my mind (second only to writing a thesis about it). My husband, however, had a different idea. Having met Governor Mike Huckabee a few years before, Michael was excited about the possibility of helping Huckabee win the state presidential convention, even if he was not paid to do so. Having been employed by the state party during the conception and writing of the rules and procedures for the first ever West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention to be held February 5, 2008, Michael determined a winning strategy. We began traveling the state, telling our friends about the convention and registering them to participate. Even as we recruited others to participate, I really did not understand the convention processes at all. Everyone that I knew in the party seemed very excited about the convention, but no one really seemed to have a grasp on exactly what would happen and how all of the complicated rules would come together to produce a state-wide delegation. In fact, while my husband was still employed by the state party, he travelled to a few different counties to explain the convention process to the very people who voted unanimously in favor of it. Even after Michael explained the convention to me several times my understanding was vague at best, mostly because it seemed pointlessly complicated and fairly inconsistent. For instance, I had no idea why a county would have both automatic and at-large 1 delegates; it seemed to me that one would make the other either impossible or unnecessary. Nonetheless, my concern at the time was not about the quality of the convention process but about winning a campaign in which my husband was involved. Apprehension about the convention in terms of democracy, though, was always in the back of my mind. In the weeks prior to the convention people across the state voted in online elections for county-level delegates to the convention. When my husband and I had to walk almost every Huckabee supporter through the voting process, I knew I was not alone in my confusion. I heard about people who registered to vote online but never received the necessary passwords, as well as people who showed up to courthouses hoping to vote there. Also, the fact that everything occurred online was puzzling to me, as I knew many registered Republicans were not very technologically savvy. I knew this could not bode well for the West Virginia Republican Party, which was not exactly popular in the state anyway. I could not understand why the state’s underdog for so long opted for a convention process which effectively disengaged a majority of its very small number of supporters. As the process when on, I came to understand that my husband and our otherwise nonpolitical friends supporting Huckabee were in the minority and frowned upon among party actives. I discovered that most of our political ‘friends’ universally supported Mitt Romney and put forth little effort to involve anyone else. In fact, other than Ron Paul’s, no other campaigns were attempting to reach anyone outside of the party regulars. The fact that Michael, who had never really veered from the party ‘norm’ before, refused to support Romney and active worked for Huckabee among people who had never been involved in the party at all was suspected and even openly criticized as divisive. Again, this made no sense to me; wasn’t Michael doing what everyone else was doing by supporting his choice candidate? Because I was not necessarily convinced that Huckabee could win the convention, I was leery of upsetting basically everyone else that we knew within the party; working for many of them had been 2 our livelihood at one time or another. I thought it did not make sense that they wanted us to get behind the party-favored candidate; however, I was not sure it was worth displeasing those with whom we would have to work in the future. I was also leery of associating with the more radical Ron Paul campaigners, who I heard referred to as ‘kooks’ more than once. I knew that Huckabee and Paul were seen as idealistic and unviable. Even those supporting other candidates like Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani were somewhat excused from supporting Romney because their candidates had ‘viability’, whatever that meant. It did not seem very smart to me to spend political capital on a candidate who could not win. Once the online voting was completed, Michael informed me that his strategy (which I did not understand) for getting Huckabee delegates elected was successful and that Huckabee boasted more elected delegates than any of the other candidates. In fact, Michael and I were the state’s highest vote- getters with 69 and 68 votes respectively. As much as I tried to be impressed with my husband’s success, I was shocked at how few people had actually participated. This miniscule number of Republicans was going to decide 18 of the state’s 27 delegates to the Republican National Convention? And if I was shocked about this as a participant, what were people thinking who were not able to participate? In fact, what they thought was nothing because they did not even know there had been an election in which to participate. Questions as to the legitimacy of this election grew stronger in my mind. Some outside of the party regulars who were able to participate somewhat were Ron Paul supporters, although they had a great deal of difficulty as well. My husband had several meetings with a few of the Paul campaign’s leaders, one of which I attended. While they discussed a strategy for the day of the convention involving several rounds of voting and forming a coalition, I listened, confused and skeptical. The day of the convention sounded just as complicated as the process for getting there. And was this conspiring between campaigns allowed? It seemed very out of character for Michael, who is very personally conservative, usually always favors the status quo, and almost never rocks the boat.

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