Posted on 01/31/2008 8:23:00 AM PST by Jack Black
Out of frustration with the current primary system several observers and magazines have suggested a single nationwide primary. This would cause as many problems as it fixes, including making money a huge determining factor and (therefore) giving even more power to the MSM to pick our candidates.
Several of these commentators have compounded the bad idea of a All-State Primary with the worse suggestion that the Congress mandate it.
The proposed plan is not great for several reasons. First off is Constitutionality. The Republican party is not a branch of the US Government which the Congress can legislate rules for!
The Republican Primary is a private organization whose members have the right to set their own rules. If we are unhappy with the process let us force the Republican Party to change them.
Here are some changes I would support:
1. No caucuses. All Presidential delegates shall be determined by a full vote of the people of the state.
2. No winner take all. All states should have the same rules for the primaries. Some "bonus" for the winner is OK.
This year several big states going "winner take all" has skewed the influence of the East out of all proportion to the value they represent to our eventual nominee. New York should not weigh so heavily in picking the GOP nominee, and WTA is making that worse.
3. More delegates for Red States. That is States should get "credit" for going for the GOP Presidential nominee in one or more previous election. This, again, prevents states like New York, which has lots of voters but zero record of going Republican from selecting who will be the candidate of the GOP.
4. Group states into 5 (or so)groups, have them vote on the same day, and rotate between the groups.
The states should be broken up into diverse "baskets". Each basket would get: 1 mega state, 1 midwest state, 1 western state, 1 New England state, 1 southern State, 1 rust belt state. In this way no particular demographic, geographic or ideological group gets an advantage by dint of lottery. These groups are fairly evenly weighted.
Five Groups of 10 states each would mean one primary a month in Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May.
5. No independent voting in GOP primaries. This may require the GOP to remove control of our primaries from state legislatures and pay for them oursleves. Fine. On general principles we should not let Democratic legislatures dictate our rules, anyway.
States would be free to hold whatever beauty contests, state sponsored, they choose. We can not prevent New Hampshire from having a giant straw poll in January. But the RNC would not accredite such an event with any power to name delegates. That would ONLY take place in the RNC sanctioned group primaries.
By having our own primary process, seperate from the Dems, we would begin to increase the differentiation between our open, fair and well thoght out process and the corrupt, insider laden Democrat one. This, in turn, would attract voters to our party.
Many commentators have, erroniously, blamed the RNC for the primary mess. This is exactly wrong. Our current system is not an unfair one designed by the RNC, in secret, to benefit John McCain or other favored candidates. It is, instead, a hodgepode of individual rules created by state parties and state legislatures. In many cases the state legislatures are run by corrupt Democratic machines!
No wonder it is a mess. The solution therefore does not lie in having (many Democratic) legislatures take even more control of our process, but rather insisting that the RNC get tough, lay down the law, and create a system that is fair, consistent and for Republicans.
Sorry. All primary elections should be replaced by caucuses. Caucuses provide a place for arguments to be made prior to the vote by caucus-goers. In Iowa, at least, the caucuses also start writing that year’s party platform, something done by only the party elites in primary election states. Primary elections are examples of the top-down control over the party wielded by the party’s professional politicians.
The rise of primaries has destroyed both major parties, who, organizationally, are both near collapse.
If nominees are selected by popular vote (leaving aside the issue of who gets to vote for a moment), what is the function of party organizations? Why should parties exist at all?
If parties exist to promote specific ideas or programs, then why should voting by tangentially connected idiots be able to repeal those ideas or programs?
For example, if the Republican Party national organization is committed to reversal of Roe v. Wade, why should primary voters be allowed to choose a pro-choice candidate? They shouldn't, as I see it.
At MOST, these votes should be advisory in nature.
Or, if Presidential candidates are to be chosen by what is in effect a plebescite, then the electors (voters) should have to have some sort of actual connection (other than declaratory) to the party they are voting in.
I voted in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire this year, for example. How absurd is that?
Most "registered Republicans" have minimal or no connection to the major goals and objectives of the RNC, and a lot of them can't find their a** with a flashlight.
These ideas are good, but party enrollment is so close to meaningless that it can't be the standard for reform.
I agree that the primary schedule should be spread out with a limited number of states per week. How it is organized can be debated. I don’t think there is anything that can be done about the media declaring winners and losers so early that candidates are marginalized before they even get going.
Only moronic politicians could come up this primary, caucus system. This is the first time I have been involved in the nomination process, and for pure, unadulterated, pound-for-pound idiocy it is without rival. Dems and Pubs voting on different dates in different states? It is like it is all for free and doesn’t come out of the taxpayers pockets.
This doesn’t have to be hard. You put the names of the 50 states on 50 ping pong balls and put them in the hopper. You get the parties to agree on dates and draw the ping pong balls out for those dates. You do this every primary election. That eliminates the nonsense about trying to be first and certain states like NH and Iowa having more sway in elections than they rightly deserve.
There are 435 representatives, therefore 435 districts and 435 delegates. When the time comes for a state to vote, the votes are tallied by district and it is winner-take-all. You win that District, you win that delegate. All political parties vote on the chosen date in that state. There is no caucusing or super-delegates, the people vote and whomever gets the most votes in that district, gets that delegate. The candidate that gets the most delegates is obviously the nominee.
Perhaps this could eliminate the convoluted mess that we have now. Perhaps it might lead to better candidates and better nominees. Perhaps Americans would be more likely to get involved, knowing their vote won’t always be on the back end of every election, when the race has already been decided?
Your observation might be true for everybody in NH where party enrollment or even state citizenship is meaninless as we saw this past Dec.
the MSM had a huge victory in 2006 and they are flexing their muscle this time too. There is a good chance neither party’s base will get their preferred candidate.
There is more to the primaries than congressional districts, including giving elected reps votes. That is as it should be.
You system is pleasingly simple but ignores the reality that the Congress does not have a legitimate role in fixing this problem.
((((((You get the parties to agree on dates and draw the ping pong balls out for those dates))))))
I am not looking for the government to mandate any of my proposal. If the parties do not agree then obviously it won’t happen. I am all for separating the process from the government as much as possible. I view political parties as anything else; The Democratic and Republican parties are the government for all intents and purposes and they surely don’t mind using our tax dollars to hold their elections.
My intent is to have fewer voters feel alienated by the nomination process and counter the problems produced by the disorganization of the circus, they call a process. What any party is looking for is a candidate to represent them. We are a representative republic and my ideas support that system. If the electorate voting in each district is good enough to choose representation in congress, then surely it is up to the task of choosing a party nominee.
Most of those sound good, but I disagree strongly about caucuses vs primaries.
Primaries have much higher ‘turnout’, meaning they attract many more people who don’t pay much attention to politics and therefore vote based on what they hear from the MSM. Romney won all the caucus states except Iowa and West Virginia which went to Huckabee. All of McCain’s victories came from primary states.
Attending a caucus requires more effort than voting in a primary, thus the people who show up at a caucus are more likely to put more effort into politics in general and staying informed rather than just tuning into the MSM a few days before the election and voting based on that.
Yes, the ordering and assignment of delegates should be based on how the state went in the last general election. Either lead with ‘battleground’ states that were decided with less than 5% of the vote in the last general election, or start with the reddest states and work down the list.
Either way, ‘blue’ states along the Boston-NYC-DC corridor, Illinois, and the left coast should go last.
If the candidates can’t win in the red states it doesn’t matter how much the RAT states like them.
Red states can thin the herd before the blue states offer their input.
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