Closed Primaries?

It's cute to talk about scrapping a two party system until you look at places that have done just that. What that creates is constant instability. Look at places like France and Italy where the panoply of parties have traditionally created profound instability in government with governments falling as many as four and five times a year. I think there was one stretch in post WWII France where they have 56 governments in 10 years.

That kind of instability is probably not helpful. You would feel better represented by your representatives though.

I love how people talk about the "two-party system" as though it's something mandated by law. We actually have quite a number of legitimate, official political parties in this country, many of which even manage to get their candidates on the general election ballot. The perceived "two-party system" exists because people tend to have trouble with a contest that's more complicated than that.
 
That's too bad. I'm not affiliated with any political party and refuse to ever be.

You misunderstand if you believe this is about someone trying to make you join a political party. The thread is about the Republican Party; it's not about you.
 
I love how people talk about the "two-party system" as though it's something mandated by law. We actually have quite a number of legitimate, official political parties in this country, many of which even manage to get their candidates on the general election ballot. The perceived "two-party system" exists because people tend to have trouble with a contest that's more complicated than that.

I said nothing of the sort and am more Libertarian than anything else, I don't think anyone has trouble with contests that are more complicated. France has been doing it for years. But there elections are by proportional representation which favors a large number of parties. By having a head-to-head election system, winner take all, you pretty much guarantee a two or three party system.
 
No wonder you people are so ornery. If I still lived in MA, I'd be ornery too.

Gunny’s right though, we should NOT have to tow a party line. Why would anybody not want the freedom to vote their conscious? It boggles my mind. There is no allegiance to a party, the only allegiance is to the Constitution.

When we lose our freedom to vote our conscious, which is what some of you people are advocating for, I don’t see the point of voting. That happens frequently in closed primary states because, for whatever reason, people didn’t reregister by the deadline. So, they just stay home on primary day - disenfranchised.

It's just another attempt to tighten control on the two-party system. The Republicans and Democrats are a good ol' boys club and they will seperately and collectively deal anyone out they possibly can do whatever they think they can get away with to legislate them out.

Let the Republicans disenfranchise independent voters. See what it gets them. I hope they like Obama.
 
I said nothing of the sort and am more Libertarian than anything else, I don't think anyone has trouble with contests that are more complicated. France has been doing it for years. But there elections are by proportional representation which favors a large number of parties. By having a head-to-head election system, winner take all, you pretty much guarantee a two or three party system.

First of all, I didn't say YOU said it at all. It was a comment on the accumulated conversation, and does anyone around here NOT view everything said as a personal attack? What a bunch of me-monkeys. Like I told Sky, if I wanted to criticize or insult someone, I would just do it, no vagueness involved.

Second of all, clearly people DO have a problem with it, because they show very little inclination as a group to pay serious attention to more than two candidates at a time.

Third, our system is intended to provide the winner with as much clear authority upon taking office as possible, rather than leaving him in the weakened position of the majority of the electorate actually NOT wanting him there. It doesn't preclude a third-party candidate from entering the fray and winning, though.
 
First of all, I didn't say YOU said it at all. It was a comment on the accumulated conversation, and does anyone around here NOT view everything said as a personal attack? What a bunch of me-monkeys. Like I told Sky, if I wanted to criticize or insult someone, I would just do it, no vagueness involved.

Second of all, clearly people DO have a problem with it, because they show very little inclination as a group to pay serious attention to more than two candidates at a time.

Third, our system is intended to provide the winner with as much clear authority upon taking office as possible, rather than leaving him in the weakened position of the majority of the electorate actually NOT wanting him there. It doesn't preclude a third-party candidate from entering the fray and winning, though.

Please. Who was the last 3rd party candidate to win a US Presidential election? Abraham Lincoln. Since then, all 3rd party candidates do is split one party or the other and they are shut out of the political process as much as can be possibly done.

If "Republicans" were the majority of the electorate, there would NOT be a candidate they did not want.

This is a lame, cheap attempt to legislate that anyone voting Republican has to be a Republican rather than deal with the issue that party does NOT represent its constituents any longer. Which means we'll get some cheapass neocon in 2012 shoved on us.

Hope you like Obama. The way the GOP's going, he'll be around awhile.
 
Please. Who was the last 3rd party candidate to win a US Presidential election? Abraham Lincoln. Since then, all 3rd party candidates do is split one party or the other and they are shut out of the political process as much as can be possibly done.

When did I say it was EASY to win as a third-party candidate? I said it could be done. And I have noticed that it's become consistently more difficult . . . because people aren't really inclined to pay attention to more than two candidates, which is what I've been saying.

If "Republicans" were the majority of the electorate, there would NOT be a candidate they did not want.

I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean.

This is a lame, cheap attempt to legislate that anyone voting Republican has to be a Republican rather than deal with the issue that party does NOT represent its constituents any longer. Which means we'll get some cheapass neocon in 2012 shoved on us.

Legislate? What part of "this is not mandated or controlled by law" are you having trouble with? And no, no one is preventing people from voting for the Republican candidate in the general election. You're welcome to vote for whomever you like at that point. And I am just laughing my ass off at your notion that the party will serve its constituents WORSE by limiting its primary TO it's frigging constituents. Oh, yeah. Limiting the Republican primary to Republicans is really going to INCREASE the chances of getting a "cheapass neocon", instead of a rock-ribbed conservative like John McCain. :cuckoo:

Hope you like Obama. The way the GOP's going, he'll be around awhile.

Is this just your new sig line? I notice that you prattle it out in nearly every single post, regardless of how utterly inappropriate and unrelated it is to anything being discussed. Or are you trying to tell us that Obama got elected last month because the GOP is contemplating THIS month the possibility of EVENTUALLY limiting their primaries to registered members?
 
It's "conscience", and what does any of this lofty-sounding bilge have to do with the question of primary elections?

Oh, and that last part? I'm supposed to be horrified because we didn't get the "benefit" of the votes of alleged adults who are too frigging stupid and disorganized to manage to get registered to vote and thus disenfranchised themselves? Presidential elections are FOUR YEARS APART. If they can't pull their heads out of their rectums long enough to get registered to vote in FOUR YEARS, they don't NEED to vote, and we don't need to hear from them.


If you're too ignorant to understand the gest of the conversation perhaps you should STFU and do more reading and less typing.
 
It seems that most of the people attending the Republican Governors Association Conference in November feel that the Republican Party needs to become more conservative in order to win in the future. To that end, many people in the party are looking at the idea of closing Republican primaries to anyone who is not actually registered as a Republican.

Wow, that was complicated. I said that months ago, and didn't even have a high-powered conference to figure it out. :eusa_whistle:

In the 2008 presidential primaries, exit polls prove John McCain failed to win a single race among registered Republican voters in open primaries up to Super Tuesday, yet during that same period he went from also-ran to front runner because most non-Republicans who crossed over voted for him. In New Hampshire, Romney won among registered Republicans, but McCain won overall. Likewise, in South Carolina, Huckabee won among registered Republicans, but McCain won the state.

This, of course, demonstrates that open primaries yield more leftward candidates. And why is it, I keep asking, that the GOP would want Democrats and moderate independents choosing their candidates for them? Democrats, obviously, are going to vote for the Democrat candidate in the general election, and if 2008 is any indication, moderates who voted for the more liberal of the GOP candidates in the primary are ALSO going to vote for the Democrat in the primary. So why listen to them?

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan GOP and one of the three leading candidates for RNC chairman, says this:

The Republican Party is moving inexorably toward closing rather than opening its presidential primaries, because the party needs to pick its candidates rather than allowing others to do so. As Chairman, he would facilitate and encourage the increasingly closed primary process, which could not be formally adopted as a nationwide mandate until the Republican National Convention in 2012. However, the RNC could indeed pass a Resolution in the meantime encouraging the states to close their primaries in the interim in the run-up to 2012.

Katon Dawson and Michael Steele, two other leading candidates for RNC chairman, also favor the idea.

I think the solution is to have our primaries, for every state, for all parties, on one single day.

Many of the problems with this particular primary, on the Democratic side of the aisle, was that once McCain had won the Republican primary, which was early on, the republican voters then began crossing over and voting in the Democratic Primaries.

And if a Democrat in a state where your candidate was certain to win, then you might have crossed over and voted in the Republican Primary...

All of this swayed with each primary at a later date down the road, people voted based on how the Primary results were coming out, for voters on both sides of the aisle.

If the primary election were held on one single day, maybe in May sometime, then all states would "count" in choosing their candidate of choice and all voters would be forced to choose a "party" that they will vote for on this one primary day without any manipulation of the system via crossing over based on how the primary was turning out...

Care
 
It seems that most of the people attending the Republican Governors Association Conference in November feel that the Republican Party needs to become more conservative in order to win in the future. To that end, many people in the party are looking at the idea of closing Republican primaries to anyone who is not actually registered as a Republican.

Wow, that was complicated. I said that months ago, and didn't even have a high-powered conference to figure it out. :eusa_whistle:

In the 2008 presidential primaries, exit polls prove John McCain failed to win a single race among registered Republican voters in open primaries up to Super Tuesday, yet during that same period he went from also-ran to front runner because most non-Republicans who crossed over voted for him. In New Hampshire, Romney won among registered Republicans, but McCain won overall. Likewise, in South Carolina, Huckabee won among registered Republicans, but McCain won the state.

This, of course, demonstrates that open primaries yield more leftward candidates. And why is it, I keep asking, that the GOP would want Democrats and moderate independents choosing their candidates for them? Democrats, obviously, are going to vote for the Democrat candidate in the general election, and if 2008 is any indication, moderates who voted for the more liberal of the GOP candidates in the primary are ALSO going to vote for the Democrat in the primary. So why listen to them?

Saul Anuzis, chairman of the Michigan GOP and one of the three leading candidates for RNC chairman, says this:

The Republican Party is moving inexorably toward closing rather than opening its presidential primaries, because the party needs to pick its candidates rather than allowing others to do so. As Chairman, he would facilitate and encourage the increasingly closed primary process, which could not be formally adopted as a nationwide mandate until the Republican National Convention in 2012. However, the RNC could indeed pass a Resolution in the meantime encouraging the states to close their primaries in the interim in the run-up to 2012.

Katon Dawson and Michael Steele, two other leading candidates for RNC chairman, also favor the idea.

Romney has a puncher's chance of winning if Obama walks into a haymaker. Your idea may have yielded Gingrich which would have zero chance against Biden much less Obama.
 

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