Reform, Not Gaming Partisan Primaries, is the Key to Long Term Change
Democrats Voting in Republican Primaries Is Not a Long-Term Solution...A Look at Culture War Bullies....And John Fetterman's Self-Inflicted Wounds in the Pennsylvania Senate Race
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) lost a bid for a second term, being ousted in the Republican Primary. His opponent had some help…from Democrats. The the AP reports:
AP found a sizable percentage of Republican early ballots were cast by voters who participated in the Democratic primary two years ago. Specifically, more than 14% of the 38,000 early or absentee votes cast in the Cawthorn race — more than 5,400 voters — came from a Democratic 2020 primary voter.
Cawthorn lost his primary by fewer than 1,500 votes.
This was by design, the design of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill) who targeted other races including the Georgia Secretary of State race in favor of incumbent Brad Raffensperger who refused then-President' Trump’s request to find 11,000 votes.
On the forefront of the crossover movement, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has called for an “uneasy alliance” between Democrats, independents and Republicans to take down pro-Trump candidates in GOP primaries whenever and wherever possible. Some states have open primaries like Georgia that allow people to vote in either primary, while other states have more restrictive rules.
In an interview, Kinzinger said he was pleasantly surprised by the Democrats’ response in some races. He said he never expected the movement to be an “earth-shattering game-changer” right away.
Kinzinger’s political organization, Country First, targeted thousands of former Georgia Democrats with mailers and text messages urging them to support Raffensperger for the sake of democracy.
I can sympathize with Kinzinger and those who crossed over because for the first time ever I had to do the same thing.
I’m not a Democrat but a confirmed unaffiliated voter. I had no interest in voting in another Republican Primary. Then Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin’s campaign for Governor loomed large. She had cozied up to some very dangerous militia groups and far-right activists. She appeared at an event hosted by White Nationalist Nick Fuentes.
The possibility of her becoming Governor and therefore Commander-in-Chief of Idaho’s National Guard was a frightening prospect. Janice McGeachin is someone who should never be given a military to command.
As a father of a baby boy, the thought of her as Governor didn’t bear thinking about. While polls showed her trailing, polling is notoriously spotty in Idaho and I really couldn’t risk Governor McGeachin. So I re-registered as a Republican to vote against her and her allied candidates.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s a great solution. It’s a stopgap at best. It’s a tactic that angers partisans and will lead to a backlash. When I was a Republican, crossover voters were hugely irritating. I was really involved and cared about the party and its values. The idea that a Democrat could show up off the street and push a further left candidate or in some cases decide to work mischief by pushing a nutty candidate to give the Democrats a chance in the Fall was repulsive and many Republicans feel the same way and there’s an ever-increasing movement to close partisan primaries and the more this tactic is used the more steam that movement will gain.
There’s a very strong argument against this from an emotional perspective. Taxpayers finance primary elections, not political parties and therefore EVERYONE should be able to vote in a party’s primary. However, the Constitution disagrees. In 2000, in California Democratic Party v. Jones the Supreme Court ruled that under the principle of freedom of association in the First Amendment, parties could choose who could vote in their primaries. Now, states could choose to defund partisan primaries. In that case, political parties will choose methods internal methods, like voting at a state convention, to pick their nominee. This is not a comforting idea given the fringes running both parties.
Blanket Open Primaries
There is another solution, that has two elements to it.
The first part of that solution is Blanket Primaries (also known as Jungle Primaries.) It had been implemented in Washington and Louisiana for some time. California implemented it as an effective answer to California Democratic Party v. Jones. Alaska will implement it beginning with the special election to fill the seat of the late Rep. Don Young (R-AK)
The partisan primaries historically ask, “Who shall be the nominee of the Republican (or Democratic) Parties?” The political parties have the ultimate say over who can make that decision.
The blanket primary puts all candidates regardless of party on the same ballot which the top finishers advancing to the General election. The question, “How shall candidates quality for the general election ballot?” is very much a question the state can decide and all political parties have no say over it.
Why Blanket Primaries Alone Can Aren’t Enough
Yet, the traditional blanket primary poses some problems as well. As a rule, the top two finishers advance to the General election regardless of party, often leading to General Elections where major chunks of the electorate will find themselves without a candidate to vote for in the Fall. Given that primary electorates are significantly smaller than general election electorates letting them circumscribe the choices of the general electorate to that degree in the Fall is problematic. While this happens to an extent with partisan primaries, voters still have the options of write-in and third party candidates.
For some partisan activists, that’s the point. One Daily Kos blogger called for Democrats to support former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the 2018 Gubernatorial Primary despite him having committed the progressive heresy of supporting charter schools because a race between then-Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsome and Villaraigosa would mean no Republican was running for statewide office and would lead depressed Republican turnout which would hand the Democrats U.S. house seats in swing districts by depressing Republican turnout across the state.
In addition, this tilts the playing field even more in the direction of the two major parties as it would require any Independent to beat all but one candidate from the major parties in a low-turnout primary election.
A more promising solution is Alaska’s system. Under that system, the top four candidates advance to the Fall election. Voters in the general election will get to pick the winner through the process of ranked-choice voting where they’ll rank the candidates from 1-4. The Alaska system limits the influence of extremists and also discourages the sort of gaming that can happen in “top two” states.
Alaska has passed the type of reform that can really be positive for politics. In the face of extremist elements, voters have to do what they have to do in order to protect their homes and families. But the best long-term strategy is an agenda of political reform not mere disruption.
DeSantis Takes Away Ray’s Practice Field, Biden takes Lunches from Kids
There were a couple of stories that were related though no one covered them like that.
First, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fl.) vetoed funding for a new practice facility for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Many media reports indicated it might have been as a payback for a somewhat benign tweet on gun violence.
DeSantis stated that it was inappropriate to spend taxpayers’ money on a facility for a privately owned sports owned (absolutely correct) but also said it was inappropriate to “subsidize the political activism of a private organization.”
That is balderdash. The bill he vetoed wouldn’t subsidize their political opinions. It would subsidize them playing baseball. As Allahpundit pointed out at Hot Air a lot of businesses engage in political activism by donating to politicians like DeSantis and then later getting state contracts. It’s nonsense and many on the left were outraged about DeSantis acting in such a high-handed way.
Yet, there was another story that didn’t get as much play from the Left. The Biden Administration issued new guidance on what schools would be eligible to receive from the School Lunch Program. They are requiring that in order for schools to be eligible to receive money for the school lunch program for poor children, they had to add sexual orientation and gender identity to their non-discrimination codes.
To be clear, LGBT students should not be mistreated or subject to bullying in any way shape, or form. However, this is a complex issue. Many localities have concerns about what that would mean for issues such as bathroom use or biological boys competing in girls sports.
There has been and will continue to be court battles over how to best proceed and interpret the Constitution on these issues, but that’s not acceptable for the Biden Administration whose stance is: "Either adopt the type of code we want or your poor children will no longer get lunch.” Biden’s heavy-handedness makes DeSantis look like a lightweight.
In an ideal world, no politician would use public money as a club to force their will on culture war issues, but for voters who feel they have to choose between the lesser of two evils, the choice may be very clear. Say what you want about DeSantis’ grandstanding and his spiteful retaliatory tendencies, he hasn’t held kids’ lunches hostage to his agenda.
A Good Week for Oz, a Bad Week for Fetterman
Doctor Mehmet Oz got a lot of good news in his run for U.S. Senate. His opponent in the GOP primary, Dave McCormick chose to be unlike Oz’s political benefactor and scream, “Fraud!” and lawyer out the results of the Primary for months on end. Even though Oz led by under a thousand votes, the odds of anything changing were remote.
The other good news for Oz is that his Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman (D-PA) revealed that he had an underlying heart condition that he ignored prior to his stroke. Fetterman’s health is less a concern than the fact that he lied to voters about it. It was described as far more minor in the lead-up to the state’s primary without any underlying condition. This was an obvious lie intended to win the state’s Democratic Primary. If Democratic Primary voters got jittery, it could have led to a stampede to his opponent Congressman Conor Lamb (D-PA). Given Fetterman’s large margin of victory in the primary, such a stampede wouldn’t have cost him the nomination, but it would have made him look weaker.
Of course, the truth came out after weeks of lies and he’s still a weaker candidate who put himself above the Democratic Party and lied to his constituents to win. That takes the shine off of him. Before this incident, I would have viewed Fetterman as favored to win and pick up the Senate seat of retiring Senator Pat Toomey. I think this is no longer the case.
I also no longer think Pennsylvania the Seat most likely to change parties. Rather the Pennsylvania Senate election will be the Northern version of the Georgia Senate election as two very flawed candidates face off.
Oz is a flip-flopper with no political principles who acts like he’s speaking a foreign language when explaining his platform. He’s a human gaffe machine He’s supported by Trump and in turn plays lip service to Trump’s election lies. Fetterman looks like a stern tough guy but is a full-fledged Bernie bro and is far too left to win in a non-Democratic wave year. Add to that Fetterman’s deceit and Pennsylvania voters are going to have a proper mess to sort out this Fall. Either candidates could win, but it’ll ultimately be a question of which one voters hate least.