Karl Rove calls for GOP to have late June 2016 convention

by: Matt

Thu Nov 15, 2012 at 20:16:34 PM EST

This is interesting:

Holding the convention in late August made sense when candidates relied on public financing for the general election. That will never happen again. … Future conventions should be held as early as late June.

(From WSJ via Playbook)

Well, we've been writing about this for six years. Four years ago I wrote:

And four years later, things are changing again, and they're going to change again in 2012. I expect that John McCain will be the last major candidate to ever accept public financing for the general election.

That turned out to be true. When candidates used public financing for both primaries and general, they wanted early conventions, so they could get access to the general election money (See Dole '96). When they just used it for the general, they wanted a late convention, so the general election money could be used for as short a time as possible. (See Kerry '04). Now that no public financing money will be used, an earlier convention makes sense again, so donations which are targeted for the general election can be accessed. Late June? I don't see it, but the push for later and later conventions we've seen over the last few cycles may be coming to an end.