Let’s start with a disclaimer and a basic question.  First, I am not blaming the defeat of Mike Huckabee on the American electoral system.  And now the question,  is the American electoral system broken?  Personally, I believe it is.  Let me explain why.

Here in Oklahoma, we have a closed primary system.  That means Democrats vote in the Democratic primary and Republicans vote in the Republican primary.  My Mom and Dad were registered Democrat for a long time, simply because if you weren’t, then you were unable to vote in the local primaries.  We don’t see many Republicans running for local offices in Sequoyah County.  There are seventeen states with closed primaries.

There are twenty-two states with open primaries.  An open primary is a primary in which the voter can decide which party primary they will participate in at the voting booth. However, they can vote in only one party’s primary, not in both.  I realize this information is somewhat elementary, especially for those who have followed politics for quite some time, but bear with me for a moment and I believe you will get my point.

Ever since John McCain ran for President in 2000, I have heard about his appeal to Independants and some Democrats.  During the current campaign, he has done very well, especially in those states that had open primaries, allowing Democrats to vote in the Republican primary.  It appears some of his support has came from cross over voters. While I don’t have a problem with Democrats supporting Republican candidates or vice-versa in the general electon, I do have a problem with some of the things that have been taking place during this primary season.

In the days before the Texas primary, Rush Limbaugh encouraged his Texas listeners to take advantage of the open primary and vote for Hillary Clinton.  His theory was that McCain already had the nomination wrapped up and they would rather face Clinton than Barack Obama.  So, the logical thing to do was for the Republican voters to vote in the Democratic primary.  Sounds crazy, doesn’t it.

Now, maybe I am a little naive, but I would never consider voting in another primary, other than that of my own party.  I take my vote too seriously to be casting it in order to affect the outcome of the other party’s election.  In my simple way of thinking, we should cast our votes for the candidate who best reflects our values and who we think would do the best job of governing.  Trying to manipulate the primary of the other party doesn’t fall into that category.  I know Rush Limbaugh is stuck on himself, but he doesn’t have the right to try to influence the outcome of the Democratic primary.  Neither does anyone else, unless they are registered Democrats.  That goes for the Republican primary as well.

Throughout this entire election season, I have been hearing, as a Huckabee supporter, that I was wasting my vote.  He couldn’t win, they said.  I should vote for someone who could win, they said.  Now, we are hearing that the Republican nomination is clinched, so why not go vote in the Democratic primary.  Let’s try to get the easiest candidate to defeat is their theory.  Not only is that a disservice to the Republican candidates, it is not right to influence the outcome of the other party’s election.  Do not tell me how legal it is, it just isn’t right.

So, in my own little way of thinking, this process we call the American electoral system is badly broken.  The parties have entirely too much influence on who the candidates are and the voters are faced with having a poor selection to choose from.  Even though this is a nationwide office, we have fifty states with fifty different ways of deciding who the final two presidential candidates will be.  Some of them make no sense.  (Take a look at the process in Louisiana and you will see what I mean.)  How to fix it, I really don’t know. One thing for sure, the process we have now isn’t working and it seems to get worse with every election.  Steps need to be taken to correct it before it looses any semblance of order and descends into total chaos.

That’s my take!

Larry

Tags: Closed Primary, Democrat, Election, Electoral, Huckabee, John McCain, Ohio, Open Primary, Republican, Texas

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 12th, 2008 at 9:32 pm and is filed under News/Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.