Parties, primaries, and long races
Published Tue, Oct 7 2008 3:27 PM
It's been a long race for President, spanning nearly two years. Some might say that it's actually been going on for the last four years. Nevertheless, it's been going on for a long time, perhaps too long.
When a national political campaign runs this long, it's expensive. It requires continual fund raising. It requires constant advertising. It costs money to build the organization. It requires huge amounts of money, that must be raised very quickly. It's comparable, I suppose, to a startup business that has to expand to nationwide markets extremely quickly. People pay out their contributions just like they spend their money to buy a product, but what do they get?
Usually, they don't get anything. In the Presidential race there have been at least a dozen candidates that fell by the wayside as the campaigns wore on.
It took over a year and a half on the campaign trail before Barack Obama's background had to undergo any scrutiny. Once the scrutiny began, charges of racism began to fly. Meanwhile, the die-hard Obama fans won't be changing their mind, no matter what evidence is turned up. That's par for the course. I even know a few people that are reasonably intelligent, that I've been able to debate and carry on reasonable discussions that now get ticked off at me and have to leave before things get ugly when I point at Obama's hypocrisy. They'd rather sit and stew than have to face the facts.
The same can't really be said for John McCain and the Republican ticket. John McCain's support among conservatives is precarious at best. In fact, he only had the most reluctant of support until he chose his running mate. Sure, his pick of Sarah Palin energized the conservative base, but it wasn't because she is a woman, and it wasn't for a wealth of experience. It was because she has a decently conservative record.
That may not be enough anymore.
A big part of the problem is the way politicians choose to align themselves. For all practical purposes, we have a two party system in our politics, and to my way of thinking this is a bad thing. Nothing in our Constitution mandates two parties. That's just the way it falls out.
It's easier to choose from two alternatives than three or more, or it seems that way anyway. That's not really the choice we have, but we act as though it is. We actually have at least five choices in the Presidential race this year. There's the obvious choice — Republican or Democratic. But there are also Libertarian and Green party candidates to choose from, as well as perennial loser Ralph Nader.
These also-rans don't have much chance of toppling the top two (thank God for that, especially in the case of the Greens). It's rare that a third party ever does, but it does happen. More often than not though, a third party candidate serves only as a spoiler. Often the result is that we end up with the worst choice. That's what happened to us in 1992 thanks to H. Ross Perot. When he took 19 percent of the vote, mostly from the Republican candidate we ended up with the philanderer in chief as President.
This is the sort of thing that tends to keep the larger parties in power. It's that power that tends to give us the worst possible choices after the long haul of the campaign.
Conservatives are left with nothing but bad choices in this election. We can vote for a rather confused moderate — a RINO, or choose the Libertarian and end up with the Marxist. Marshall Art reminds me that
… we weren't given anything, but that we allowed the party to become what it has. Thus, if we want to encourage anyone to do anything, it must be to flood the party offices with calls demanding that they support OUR notions …
All well and good. He is, of course, correct — but party isn't the answer to my way of thinking.
Quite possibly the worst part of the problem is the Primary process. In particular the staggered primary process. The way this works is well known to most of us. A politician decides to run for President. They form an exploratory committee. They begin soliciting money. They put forth their name. Then, they appear on the ballot in one or two small states. The people in those states, members of the politician's party then cast their ballots.
Before the country at large has a chance to vote, small states like Iowa have already begun the process of choosing the candidates for our party. The primaries move from state to state, and before you know it, candidates that might represent the best possibilities for our nation, and our party drop out of the race. People that vote in the primaries in “later” states are deprived of their chance to prop up those candidates, left with nothing but unpalatable choices.
When the chance came for Washingtonians to vote, most of the real conservatives were gone.
“We can't abdicate our responsibilities as citizens any longer and pretend our past inaction hasn't led to this sorry state.”
I'm sorry, but this situation isn't the result of inaction on our part out here on the left coast. It's this ridiculously long process of “weeding out” the better candidates in favor of the populists.
Events in the State of Washington have recently given me even more reason to think about the primaries. We've gone through a long process of working out just how we're going to hold our primary elections. We hold primaries for partisan races. A few years ago, we held open primaries. Any registered voter could vote for any candidate on the ballot for any party's nomination.
So, if you were registered to vote, and there was a primary election, you had the option of helping the Democratic party choose their candidate and you had the option of helping the Republican party choose their candidate. It didn't matter what your party affiliation was.
Can you see a problem with this? Well, I suppose if you're working for one or the other party, you might not like it. After all, Washington is a decidedly “blue” state. With a majority liberal electorate, it's easy to envision the selection of the nominees being skewed — the strongest liberal would likely end up being the Democratic party's nominee, while the weakest conservative would likely end up being the Republican nominee. The end of this would of course be a continual skewing to the left. At least, that's one way to look at it.
The major parties weren't too happy with that scenario, and others. So after lawsuits, initiatives, and controversy we ended up with a new partisan primary format. Voters now had to choose a preference, and a partisan ballot. If you chose the Democratic party as your preference, you could vote in non-partisan races and Democratic races but not in any other races. If you chose the Republican party, you could vote in non-partisan races and Republican races but not in any other races. And then, there were the minor parties too.
This, of course is expensive. Elections officials have to print a lot more ballots for this sort of primary election than they do for an open primary. A lot of those ballots would end up being wasted too (thank God for recycling). Now though, we have yet another style of primary election. Now, voters don't have to state a preference. Now the partisan races aren't quite the same. If there's three Democrats, two Republicans, a Libertarian and a Green party candidate on the ballot, only two go on to the general election, and it's possible that they'll be from the same party. Of course, the lesson of H. Ross Perot would seem to apply here too.
To this I ask the question — “Why Bother?” If the primary election isn't to select candidates for the parties, why have a primary election in the first place? Why not simply hold one election and choose the winner and be done with it? Why go to the expense of holding two separate elections to choose who will serve in one office for a single term? Eliminate the expense, and let the people choose between all of the candidates.
Get it over with. If the people are intelligent enough to choose candidates for office, why not simply let them choose the office holder in the first place.
With Washington's new “top two” primary we get to see even more controversy. The Democratic party filed suit over the selection of the “preferred” party label of Gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. He chose “prefers GOP” as opposed to “prefers Republican”. Anybody that knows the history of the Republican party knows that GOP is an acronym for “Grand Old Party”, a historic nickname for the Republicans. The Democratic party objected to this though, because they claimed the Republican brand was “damaged”, and that the electorate wouldn't understand that GOP and Republican are synonymous. Apparently they thought Dino Rossi was attempting to defraud the electorate.
Of course, they don't appear to mind insulting the electorate while attacking the Republicans.
Changing all of this is something I'd like to see. What we have for a political system right now is madness. I think in some ways it leads to voter apathy. I get weary of discussing the candidates. I get tired of the mud slinging.
Yes, I know that it's important to understand the character of the politicians we have to choose from. I'd much rather have them tell me what their proposed policies are. I'd much rather understand what their political philosophy is. I'd like to understand why they choose the policies they do, rather than listen to why I should vote against the other guy.
I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime, but I think we need to ask those sort of questions. We need to look at the things candidates propose — not in terms of who it will benefit and who will be harmed, but in terms of whether it's even something that government ought to be involved in. We need to take back our liberties and exercise our rights — but to do that we need to take responsibility for our own wants and needs and take the consequences of our decisions rather than hoping for a bailout.
When our Congressmen passed the Senate's modified bailout package we saw an interesting thing. Democratic representatives and Republican representatives that had earlier voted “No” on a $700,000,000,000.00 bailout package changed their mind when it turned into an $850,000,000,000.00 package. I guess what was really wrong with it in their minds was it wasn't “big enough.”
The Vice Presidential debates also pointed out something in our politics that is simply appalling to me. A s0-called Constitutional Scholar (Joe Biden) turns out to have less than a clue when it comes to what the Constitution actually says about the role of the Vice President. When Joe Biden made his assertion that the Vice President is merely an assistant to the President and has no legislative role he pointed up his ignorance. Of course the Vice President has a legislative role. He's the President of the Senate. He may not have a vote in the Senate, unless the Senate finds itself in a tie, but he's still the President of the Senate. That means that the Senate's comings and goings, and all of its procedures are his responsibility. I know that I'm not the first one to write anything about this, but when I was hearing his words, I immediately understood what a gaffe that was. Even my youngest son, no political animal he, understood how wrong this man who's been in the Senate for more than 30 years was. And Joe Biden has taught lessons on the Constitution?
Our Congressmen, our Senators, our President, the Vice President, our Judges — every legislator, executive office or judicial officer, at both the federal and the State level are required by the Constitution to swear or affirm that they will support our Constitution. We the People of the United States deserve to know that they will do so. It is our right to expect them to do so. More, it is our duty to require it of them.
I ask you. “How can we continue to elect men like this? How can we continue to elect men and women with so little regard for our Constitution that even after 30 years they don't even understand it?”
My son can understand the Constitution at the ripe old age of 14. He knows that it's a compact between the States and the People, and our federal government. He knows that it's there to place limits on our government. He knows that it defines what our government can and cannot do.
I may not find a replacement for the Republican party — a party that's abandoned it's principles. But I can and I will try to find men and women that understand our Constitution and still want to serve in public office, if only to return us to where we ought to be. That's my ONLY measure of a candidate any more. John McCain isn't that man. Neither is Barack Obama.
This election is lost, no matter who wins. The next one needn't be.
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Marshall Art responded with:
 | An awesome post, Perri. I think you are on to something when suggesting the primary system as a good target for immediate change. One possible solution for the problem highlighted by which state holds their primaries first, is to perhaps demand of the GOP that primaries can't be held until, say, Sept prior to the general in Nov. In that case, all campaigning would have to take place first around the country, and once the campaigning for party nomination is finished, then comes the selection of the nominee. For one thing, this would reduce the penchant some candidates have for changing their tune to suit the audience before them.
Hugh Hewitt suggests that we act beyond our borders and support conservatives in state elections elsewhere. So far, this is legal, unlike foreigners contributing to our presidential races. I'm from Illinois and the state GOP is like an annoying little brother; no one pays attention to them. Needless to say, my best bet to support conservatives that are truly conservative might lie in sending money to another state's conservative candidate. Then, there'd be on more guy fighting against Barack Obama and "Pencil" Dick Durbin.
But again, this notion of changing the primary system would still require the people to nag the hell out of the party officials until a change is made. Be sure to have a good alternative idea, however, or they'll just ignore you, or worse yet, change the system into something worse.
And for sure, for each of us to make time within our busy schedules for attending local meetings to meet with local politicians and/or those "less" local who deign to come speak. It is there where we can really generate some attention in them for our concerns. Second to that is calls, emails and letters. Who knows what the number of those will be that can sway a given politician? It might mean we need thousands of letters for one politician to change or hear us, whereas the next guy might be responsive with only a few score.
So, my comment regarding our inaction still stands, but it is a bit more clarified by your suggestion about changing the primary system. That's a good place for our focus.
One more thing, I think it's equally important for a conservative voter to call, email or write the Dem/lib politician who is currently in office not representing us. How many libs actually get off their asses to do that? I really have no idea, but what if it is a very small amount? We could sway a lib if he's only hearing from conservatives.
For now, I'm ashamed to say that I only blog, paste bumper stickers to my car, wear t-shirts (both Nobama) and send the occasional email to state reps. Gotta find more time to do more, or at least take every opportunity. We must force libs to justify their positions as we willingly volunteer to justify ours.
Sorry to rant. You've given me something upon which to dwell. The only problem I see in attacking the primary system is that it infringes upon the right of each state to run their own business. So once we find a good way, we need a compelling argument into which they can't help but buy. I'm done now. |
Perri Nelson responded with: Rants
 | Sorry to rant. You've given me something upon which to dwell.
Thanks. That was a part of the goal. Whether we change the primary process, or become activist agents for conservative change, we've got to do something. Phone calls to our representatives, as you indicate, from both sides of the aisle are a start. Personally, I think that liberal activists are ahead of the game there. Just as important though is the education of our fellows. We need to stand for conservative principles if we want to see them implemented in our government. That means we've got to live by them as well. Personal responsibility. Self reliance. Thoughtful (and prayerful as well) consideration of the issues. Educating ourselves with regard to the politicians positions, and more importantly with regard to their actions. Only by being informed, and rational careful reasoning and argument will we convince others to join with us in our point of view and our cause. “Take back our Party?” — That's not good enough anymore. We need to take back our nation and our culture — before we lose them both. America was God's gift to the world. A shining city on a hill, a beacon of freedom and liberty. Our decadence, sloth and love of socialism has nearly wiped out that vision. The hill is still there, and the lamp is still lit. We just need to clean the windows. We must force libs to justify their positions as we willingly volunteer to justify ours.
Exactly. |