Friday, January 14, 2011

Republican National Committee Selects New Chair

From the NYT:

The Republican National Committee selected a new chairman on Friday, with Reince Priebus of Wisconsin surviving seven contentious rounds of balloting to succeed Michael Steele, who dropped out after the fourth round, as party officials expressed a desire for new leadership to prepare for the 2012 presidential election.
The committee is argued to be in disarray despite the sucess of party candidates in the 2010 election. Their success has been argued to be largely the consequence of outsider groups and the past chairman was argued to have poorly managed the committee's affairs.

While readign the story, I'd like you to focus on how they conducted the election. Repeated ballots until someone got a majority. Little changed until a couple of candidates -- including the ex-chair -- dropped out. As we will see when we discuss elections, different types of elections often produce different winners.

- Wikipedia: Republican National Committee.
- Michael Steele's Ten Biggest Gaffes.