Competitive GOP primary battle carries benefits and risks

With six men actively seeking the Republican Party of Iowa’s gubernatorial nomination and a few others publicly mulling a run themselves, a hotly contested 2010 GOP primary is virtually guaranteed.

Political observers agree that a closely contested primary could be a blessing or a curse for a party that has been shut out of Terrace Hill for more than a decade. The chances of rebuilding voter registration numbers and producing a candidate that is battle tested are good, but a nasty primary fight also carries the risk of creating fissures within the party structure that may not heal before Election Day.

“You always run that risk,” said Jeff Angelo, a former Republican state senator from Creston. “Maybe in past years a negative primary would have hurt Republicans, but the Republicans have hit rock bottom and are ready to mobilize and get their candidates elected. I believe no matter what happens in the primary that Republicans are hungry for victory and will unify behind a candidate that has a legitimate shot at winning Terrace Hill. “

There is nothing that unifies people more than a common enemy, Angelo said, and for Republicans that unifying figure is Gov. Chet Culver.

“That’s why you see so many people eager to jump in the race,” he said. “The incumbent looks vulnerable. Everyone is looking at his favorable/unfavorable ratings, and that is creating a lot of excitement among Republicans and is creating a lot of candidates.”

The primary may get nasty, but in the end, whomever emerges to challenge Culver will be battle tested and better prepared for the difficult task of defeating an incumbent governor, said Tim Albrecht, a veteran Republican strategist and publisher of the conservative news aggregator TheBeanWalker.com.

“You’ll see a candidate who has been in the trenches and has done the campaigning to make them more competitive in the fall of 2010,” Albrecht said.

Democrats have faced similar questions about primary battles over the past few years, and each time, a tough primary seemed to strengthen the eventual nominee, Albrecht said. In 2006, a hard-fought three-way contest for the Democratic nomination made Culver a better general election candidate, he said. And in 2008, pundits predicted the prolonged presidential primary fight between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would result in a divided party and a weakened general election campaign.

“It worked out pretty well for President Obama,” Albrecht said. “All the dirty laundry was aired and there were no surprises in the fall. That’s what a tough primary fight can do.”

In an interview with the Cedar Rapid Gazette’s James Lynch, Republican Party of Iowa Executive Director Jeff Boeyink said another positive outcome to the primary process could be an increase in Republican voters, which could close the huge voter registration advantage Democrats have built in Iowa.

According to the Iowa secretary of state’s office, there are 114,642 more registered Democrats than Republicans. But Boeyink points out that Republicans held there largest registration edge after the 1994 GOP primary race between Gov. Terry Branstad and U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy.

With numerous candidates working to identify voters and mobilize them for the primary, the registration gap will be closed next year, Angelo said.

“The more candidates you have, the more excitement they generate,” Angelo said. “They have to identify voters. They have to identify Republican-leaning independents. They have to keep them excited and mobilized. They have to go out and do the most vigorous voter turnout effort. That’s how you win a primary, and that’s how you gin up voter registration.”

But with numerous candidates all working to break through the media clutter and get their message out, the likelihood that the GOP primary could get nasty is high. One candidate, Chris Rants, seems to already be the victim of campaign chicanery.

A Des Moines Register story last week accused Rants of leaving the Republican House Majority Fund with $200,000 in debt in 2008, something Rants flatly denies. Many believe the tip came from one of Rants’s GOP primary opponents, although the source of the story was never identified.

“If it’s a neck-and-neck race heading into primary day, the temptation is going to be there to introduce some surprise element into the campaign that puts you over the top,” Angelo said.

For every primary battle that strengthened the hand of a party, though, there is one that divided it and hurt the nominee going into the fall. Republicans need only look back to 2002 for evidence.

GOP candidate Doug Gross barely avoided a convention to determine the gubernatorial nomination that year, winning only 35.6 percent of the vote in a three-way race. (In order for a candidate to win the nomination cleanly without needing a convention, he or she must garner at least one-third of the votes in a primary.) The nearly two-thirds of Republican voters who didn’t support him never truly came home, observers said, and Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack was able to easily win a second term in office.

Conservative activist Bill Salier nearly toppled former U.S. Rep. Greg Ganske for the right to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin in 2002. Most observers believe the primary challenge weakened Ganske’s candidacy to the point where national Republican groups never really got involved and Harkin was able to handily win re-election.

Ultimately, it will be up to the candidate who emerges victorious to bring everyone back together for the common goal of winning Terrace Hill, Angelo said.

And if a candidate can’t weather a tough primary campaign, he shouldn’t be the party’s nominee anyway, Albrecht said.

“What you’ll find is, a lot of these candidates’ vulnerabilities will be brought to the surface during the primary,” Albrecht said. “That’s good; you don’t want an October surprise. If you can’t weather the primary, you can’t be successful in the general.”

Right now, the Republican gubernatorial field includes Bob Vander Plaats of Sioux City, state Rep. Chris Rants of Sioux City, state Rep. Rod Roberts of Carroll, state Sen. Jerry Behn of Boone, state Sen. Paul McKinley of Chariton, and Christian Fong of Cedar Rapids.

Angelo doesn’t believe there will be any new candidates jumping into the race, despite rumors that U.S. Rep. Steve King and former Gov. Branstad are considering campaigns. In fact, Angelo said the field would most likely be much smaller by the time voters go to the polls next June.

“There is only so much of a fundraising pie to go around, and that tends to cull the weak from the herd,” he said. “By the time you get to primary day, it is going to be clear who the frontrunners are. I don’t think you’ll see five candidates.”

However, Albrecht pointed out that a latecomer to the race would not be unprecedented. The party’s 2002 gubernatorial nominee, Doug Gross, didn’t jump into the race until January of that year.

“Because Gov. Culver is vulnerable, anyone with any gubernatorial aspirations is at least going to take a look at running,” he said. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if the field grew.”