Thursday, January 17, 2008

Some Thoughts on our Broken Elections

Anne has some interested points in her latest article, "The Elephant in the Room". This also relates to the recent Kossack post urging voters to screw up the numbers in key primar(ies).
This Wikipedia article on open primaries clearly defines the issue.

Much praise has been heaped on the fact that people have the freedom now, to register as independents and pick whatever ballot they want to pick at the last minute. On the surface, most people would say more freedom is a good thing.

In the case of the primaries, not the general election, I see it as a serious threat to the ideological process of candidate selection. This means people, who would be satisfied with any of the D-grade candidates, can register as independent, falsely label themselves as undecided and proceed to place a covered call on our election process. This strategy destroys the quality of the other side's selection process.

Look at what we have in 2008. We have a straight socialist liberal line-up for the Democrat ticket. We have a mixed liberal/conservative/libertarian line-up for the Republican ticket. This means undecided MSM and Kos driven zombies can be safely and strategically directed by the Kucinich mothership to place a vote in a Republican primary, to the detriment of the party's ideological selection process. By the time the general election rolls on by, we a heavily watered down or unelectable candidate, while the other side just takes the devil picked out of their deck.

If we did not have such an untrustworthy media, with its blatant propaganda and associated bias , open primaries might not be such an issue. As one of my earlier posts points out, the watered down results actually have a feedback effect that makes the problem worse.

The only way to fix the problem is to somehow make people live with the decisions they make in the ideological selection process, or force independents to select and create their own primary candidate. I do not see the old style caucus system coming back any time soon.

What should be done immediately, is all primaries should occur on the same day, just like the general election. This would eliminate all of this painful state-by-state polling garbage. The MSM would not be able to swoop down on each small state, so they can turn the delegates into moronic 15 minute instant disposable celebrities, celebrating their equally moronic undecided status for the cameras.

BTW, Mac Johnson has another hilarious article on Human Events.

5 comments:

Buckaroo Banzai said...

I am fairly annoyed with the smug "Independent" voter. However, I am much more annoyed at the smug Iowa/New Hampshire primary voter.

The one day every four years they get to be fancy . . .

Sezme said...

I like the national primary day idea. I'll be voting in my primary on Super Tuesday. I feel pressure, like for once my vote might matter. Living in NJ, I don't feel that way very often.

Uber said...

"all primaries should occur on the same day, just like the general election"

Fantastic solution. Simple too. Hard to believe we pay the elephants and jackasses so much (min wage seems too much for most at present) while they don't do much more than talk circled around every problem, failing to act.

Oh yeah, hope you had a Merry Christmas and 08 is looking up!

The Conservative UAW Guy said...

Glad you are back, Insol! :)

Insolublog said...

Wyatt - Old friend, are they not the one and the same? There is a great deal of independent pollution poisoning the distinct decision we are trying to make. In these early states they are making their American Idol style presence known.

RT - Pressure is good, RT. It means there is a real game afoot. This is one of the most important elections of my life. You do not feel it often, because now their is a polarity on our battery politic. This is good. Polarity, mixed with high potential, breeds current flow.


Uber - I am so glad to hear from you. Thanks for the belated holiday tidings. I often praise the failure of our politicians to act on our behalf, as a default act of mercy on our future prosperity. I have yet to be proven wrong.