Posted on 09/04/2009 2:20:59 PM PDT by Artemis Webb
Does anybody know if there is any effort going on to reverse the open primary system that gave us John McCain?
According to Wikipedia the following states have open primaries:
* Alabama * Arkansas * Georgia * Idaho * Indiana * Michigan * Minnesota * Mississippi * Missouri * North Dakota * South Carolina * Tennessee * Texas * Vermont * Virginia * Wisconsin
I've run a google news search and come up with blanks.
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I apologize for the ping but you strike me as the most likely person to know the answer to this question.
Thank you for addressing this major problem.
Don’t just a few states have an actual voice? That needs to change.
Arizona doesn’t need him now either.
If you want to REALLY make sure no more McCainiacs get nominated, starte getting active NOW.
Run for local Republican Committee positions, be willing to get out there and walk the streets, stuff envelopes, man phone banks and contribute money for CONSERVATIVE Republicans.
Throw solicitations from the RNC in the garbage where they belong.
I agree about the RNC. They are a worthless organization void of ideas. They are just a bunch of suits there to collect a paycheck.
Eschew Juanabies.
This is a question for Michael Steel . . . and he better be working on changing just who chooses the Republican presidential candidate!
Don't get me started on that waste of space. :)
"Super Tuesdays" warp the entire process. When you shove everything up front, one bad day will kill a campaign. Money becomes more volatile -- big donors want to back "the winner," however poor a candidate he may be; rather than wasting their money on a loser who may nevertheless be the best person for the general election.
The accelerated primary season also means that there's no such thing as real debate in these campaigns anymore. The "debates" are incredibly stupid, because the candidates' strategies are necessarily geared toward killer soundbites.
There's simply no time for a good candidate to develop and emerge over a period of 3-4 months, with : it's all over by February.
What the Republican Party leadership really needs to do, is to begin a serious process of recruiting a few really serious candidates -- and the sooner the better. I'm talking about a return to old real "smoky back room" stuff that the primaries were designed to do away with.
The Party has a responsibility to ensure that its candidates are viable -- which means, in part, that they're acceptable across a broad-enough range of the party that the candidates themselves can settle down to real issues.
The primaries would still sort these guys out, of course -- supposing that they can be spread out more evenly between March and June, with big states coming later. To HELL with that idiocy of letting Iowa and New Hampshire decide who's viable and who's not.
Another needed reform has to do with the assigning of delegates. The "winner take all" approach is also a disaster. The Republicans have got to come up with a way so that good candidates still have a chance after a mediocre primary.
What I favor is a system (closed), but would stipulate:
The states which voted most heavily in favor of our Republican Presidential candidate in the last election get to VOTE 1st, 2nd.. in the Presidential Primaries next go round.. The states which voted least % Republican in the General Election last time get to vote LAST next go round in Republican Primaries. (That way there is a reward for voting Republican), and we then know that heavily Democratic States will ~NOT~ be determining OUR Candidate (Hence probably a more conservative nominee~)!
To me, that is the real problem, not so much the “Super Tuesday" and the quashing of the primaries together. After all, the Dems had Super Tuesday too, yet the fight for the Dems nomination went right on to the bitter end. We've got to do away with winner takes all, otherwise our primaries are could keep churning out idiots like Juan McCain.
Moreover, I suspect that the states would quite reasonably object to having different primary elections for the different parties. Far more cost-effective for them to stipulate a date and go with it.
That's a problem, of course, because that drives the states toward wanting earlier dates in order to "be relevant." TO fix that, both parties would have to agree on the "spread it out" strategy ... not impossible, as I suspect the Democrats are just as displeased with the current system as we are.
I think closing the primaries to non-party voters would have the desired effect.
Yeah, because there were two candidates who had rabid followings with deep pockets. More commonly, though, they're probably more prone to picking bad candidates with this system than we are. JF'nK being the perfect example -- he had it all sewn up early.
I favor an open system, to enable the voice of the independent, that is not winner take all. Also, I think the states that failed to deliver in the prior election should lose a portion of their delegates. It is rediculous to allow solid democratic states like NY, Mass, and California to have such a large influence on the ultimate candidate.
What if we lined up all the states from smallest to largest, in terms of electoral votes, and had primaries every Tuesday beginning in March for 25 weeks.
The first Tuesday would be the 2 smallest states, then every week the next 2 until almost close to the convention, where New York and California could be the last 2.
It would make for a true buildup of support for the best candidate. Maybe there would be 3 or 4 candidates at the end who would still have a shot.
Maybe it could help keep the candidate with monstrous war chest from “buying” the nomination.
What do you think?
Your idea is so simple and logical that there is no chance of it happening. :)
Next time try to come up with something complicated and deeply flawed. The RNC will probably love it.
Withold money to the RNC until they close all GOP primaries.
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