GOP candidates are right to ignore the RNC’s 'farcical' loyalty pledge: columnist

A handful of GOP presidential primary candidates, including the field's frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, have refused to sign the Republican National Committee's "loyalty pledge" to support whoever the party's nominee is in 2024 and to not run as an independent. On Sunday, The Daily Beast's Andy Craig explains in an opinion column why the RNC's demand is "bad on the merits, politically counter-productive, arguably illegal, and candidates and the networks should stop enabling it."

After noting that "until recently, the national party committees had no part in primary debates" and that "debates were organized by media outlets," Craig writes. "Both parties adopted their own schedule of permitted debates, assigning which channels would host them, and set their own rules for how candidates could qualify."

Craig recalls, "In 2016, the RNC circulated a pledge to support the nominee and pressured candidates to sign. But this wasn't tied to debate inclusion or delegate penalties. The only consequence at stake was political criticism. Whether Trump would sign became a minor story, and at the first debate he was attacked by his opponents for his refusal. He ultimately did sign, and of course in the end, it didn't matter. Instead, it was Trump's opponents who were locked into a promise to support him."

Craig continues, "For 2024 (there were no Republican debates in 2020), the RNC was determined to make the pledge more than a suggestion. Alongside the polling and donor thresholds, they added a rule that no candidate could debate who didn't pledge to support the nominee, no matter who it was."

Craig believes that "there is something farcical about the whole exercise. A number of candidates are strongly anti-Trump and have balked at the implication that they must support him if he wins the nomination. Likewise, Trump himself has indicated he'd be unlikely to back anybody else if he somehow loses the primary," which suggests that the RNC's conditions are "obviously an empty threat, at least for any candidate with substantial support."

Critically, Craig says, "The RNC doesn't buy the cameras, rent the venue, pay the moderators, or broadcast the event. Fox News and CNN and MSNBC and ABC do that. And they're the ones on the hook not just for the political consequences, but also running afoul of the law. It's their show and they should act like it."

Although the two parties "have more or less absolute control over the delegate selection process" because they are "private organizations free to set their own internal rules," Craig stresses, "debates are a different matter. As a consequence of campaign finance laws, the Federal Elections Commission does set certain rules. This is necessary to distinguish debates from electioneering communications, or in other words campaign ads, which are subject to various regulations."

Craig points out that "most importantly, debate sponsors must use 'pre-established objective criteria' to decide which candidates to invite. This means rules have to be based on objective measures of a candidate's support, not subjective political biases about which candidates or positions the debate hosts prefer. Anything else would be, in effect, an ad for the chosen candidates rather than a neutral debate."

Craig cautions that "requiring candidates to pledge fealty to a substantive political position is not using objective criteria. It's putting a thumb on the scale based on the content of a candidate's message, not how much support they have. Even aside from legal concerns, that's not proper as a matter of journalistic ethics."

Craig adds that while "most attention has focused on Trump for obvious reasons, the point is generally applicable. Trump himself would be equally correct in refusing, on the same principle. The pledge is a completely open-ended commitment, a promise to back literally anybody the GOP might nominate. It's not hard to imagine extreme scenarios where this would be completely unacceptable, even unpatriotic."

Thus, the RNC's pledge "doesn't accomplish its intended purpose. Partly because it's something of a joke, so obviously unenforceable," Craig concludes. "The RNC's gambit is also counter-productive to their own stated goals: uniting the party and avoiding a spoiler candidate. The pledge not only requires supporting the nominee, it explicitly includes promising not to run as an independent or third-party candidate. But this seriously misunderstands how the primary works and why it results in the party unifying around its chosen candidate."

Craig believes that "candidates should refuse to sign the pledge, both on principle and because it's bad politics. Media sponsors should refuse to disinvite otherwise qualified candidates who refuse to sign the pledge. The FEC's rules for debates should be taken seriously as long as they're on the books. And the RNC should give up on trying to hand down political diktats about what candidates must say and what positions they must take."