Well, not really, but here are a few quick thoughts before I crash off to bed. (tomorrow is moving a lot of heavy boxes for a friend.)
No arguments on President and U.S. Senator, naturally.
Open primaries: My current inclination is "no" from a fundamental standpoint. Political parties are (supposed to be, I think) groups of like-minded individuals, or at least uneasily allied individuals, who band together to increase their political clout. I see no good reason why members of one party should be allowed to influence which candidate another party puts forth in the general election, and I worry in particular about "spoiler" situations where members of one party go help choose a weak candidate for the other party so they'll lose. Moreover, if only the two top vote-getters from a particular primary advance to the next round, chances are these will be from the two major parties -- or even two candidates from the same main party. I would find it vastly preferable to have minor-party candidates selected by their party within a closed primary, and then assured a spot on the general election ballot.
I see the problem minority political parties face in this country as the flip side of the problem faced by the major parties: lack of unity and vision, lack of a clear mandate. At the present time the major parties seem like rather loose coalitions of a bunch of voters who often have little in common but who have agreed to ally with each other for the moment. The minor parties are those who have broken away in order to pursue a particular agenda, and as a result of having a more specific focus they don't get enough votes. If a minor party is going to break away and make stuff happen, they'll have to either (1) organize very tightly at the grass roots and pull enough votes away from the major parties to make a difference, or (2) find some eccentric billionaire donors who want to throw their influence around and shake things up a bit. (George Soros comes to mind.)
The fragmentation and lack of purpose really seems to be getting worse. Didn't we have no fewer than nine -- maybe even ten? -- candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination at one point? And no fewer than 135 candidates for California governor in the Gray Davis recall elections, many of whom had to collect as few as 65 signatures to get on the ballot? The threshold doesn't seem that high to me somehow; the problem is nobody can get their act together, and the big parties seem to be getting by solely on name recognition and pre-existing political machinery.
Anyway, enough of that for now. The proposal is 20 pages long and I'm going to have to read through all of it if I want to think about voting yes on this issue, since I find the "for" and "against" arguments more or less uninformative.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
going nuts
Date: 23 October 2004 01:05 (UTC)No arguments on President and U.S. Senator, naturally.
Open primaries: My current inclination is "no" from a fundamental standpoint. Political parties are (supposed to be, I think) groups of like-minded individuals, or at least uneasily allied individuals, who band together to increase their political clout. I see no good reason why members of one party should be allowed to influence which candidate another party puts forth in the general election, and I worry in particular about "spoiler" situations where members of one party go help choose a weak candidate for the other party so they'll lose. Moreover, if only the two top vote-getters from a particular primary advance to the next round, chances are these will be from the two major parties -- or even two candidates from the same main party. I would find it vastly preferable to have minor-party candidates selected by their party within a closed primary, and then assured a spot on the general election ballot.
I see the problem minority political parties face in this country as the flip side of the problem faced by the major parties: lack of unity and vision, lack of a clear mandate. At the present time the major parties seem like rather loose coalitions of a bunch of voters who often have little in common but who have agreed to ally with each other for the moment. The minor parties are those who have broken away in order to pursue a particular agenda, and as a result of having a more specific focus they don't get enough votes. If a minor party is going to break away and make stuff happen, they'll have to either (1) organize very tightly at the grass roots and pull enough votes away from the major parties to make a difference, or (2) find some eccentric billionaire donors who want to throw their influence around and shake things up a bit. (George Soros comes to mind.)
The fragmentation and lack of purpose really seems to be getting worse. Didn't we have no fewer than nine -- maybe even ten? -- candidates seeking the Democratic presidential nomination at one point? And no fewer than 135 candidates for California governor in the Gray Davis recall elections, many of whom had to collect as few as 65 signatures to get on the ballot? The threshold doesn't seem that high to me somehow; the problem is nobody can get their act together, and the big parties seem to be getting by solely on name recognition and pre-existing political machinery.
Anyway, enough of that for now. The proposal is 20 pages long and I'm going to have to read through all of it if I want to think about voting yes on this issue, since I find the "for" and "against" arguments more or less uninformative.