If it's Broke, Don't Fix It

George Will on Reince Priebus and the effort to reform the GOP’s nominating process:

Priebus’s perilous, and probably thankless, task is to rally a fraying party behind rules that will solve two entangled problems: the delegate-selection calendar and the number of candidate debates.

The delegate-selection process needs to be long enough to test the candidates’ mettle but not so protracted that it leaves the winner politically battered and financially depleted. Debates must be numerous enough to give lesser-known and modestly financed candidates opportunities to break through. They must not, however, be so numerous as to prolong, with free exposure, hopeless candidacies. Or to excessively expose the candidates to hostile media debate managers. Or to leave the winner’s stature reduced by repetitive confrontations.

There is no perfect process, which is just one reason Priebus’s task is so thankless. If the perfect is the enemy of the good, so are the entrenched interests in favor of keeping the lousy the enemy of the good.

The Rovian consultant class remains firmly in charge, and their interest lie not in nominating winning candidates, but in selling expensive TV time. And lots of it.