Soccer Dad: Open season

February 28, 2006

Open season

Fellow Maryland blogger Maryland Conservatarian took strong issue with my call for open primaries.

Primaries should produce candidates that at least nominally reflect the party�s choice. Otherwise, this year I�d be pushing Republicans everywhere to vote for Kwesei Mfume in the Senate primary.�.for obvious reasons, he is a much preferred opposition candidate than Congressman Ben Cardin. Of course, similar tactics could work against us. And I don�t think this proposal would do too much to bring Indies into the fold as I�ve long suspected that many registered Indies are so as a kind of weenie way out of voting in the primaries. They probably wouldn�t appreciate our kicking that legit barrier down.

So why do I support open primaries?

1) This was in response to a Sun editorial calling for electoral reform. Since the Sun didn't mention it, I'm assuming that it's a good idea. (OK that's not serious.)

2) My own experience in 2002 showed that my right to vote could be taken away by judicial fiat. I want protection against that happening again.

3) But does that mean that open primaries are the answer? My feeling had been that people do regard their right to vote as sacred. I don't believe that people are so likely to waste a primary vote to ensure a victory in the general election. Do I know that? No.

However, when researching my response I found a couple of interesting objections to open primaries. One is that Gray Davis was never considered a strong choice as candidate for governor of California. But there was a Democrat push in the primary to vote for Bill Simon over Richard Riordan. Simon, the more conservative Republican was less attractive statewide and therefore lost. Had Republicans alone voted in the primary Riordan would have been the nominee and beaten Davis.

It sounds plausible though I'm not entirely convinced.
Davis may have been a poor candidate but he was a heck of fundraiser. Raising lots of money can make up for a serious lack of appeal. Did Simon lose because he was too conservative or because he ran an awful campaign in the general election? Ellen Sauerbrey, the more conservative candidate - as selected in a closed primary - nearly won Maryland in 1994 because she ran an excellent campaign. (She was also helped by a nationwide anti-Democratic backlash.)

The other example of the folly of open primaries is the 1991 race for governor of Louisiana between Edwin Edwards (the crook) and David Duke (the racist). The argument I saw was that because of open primary hurt the moderate candidates. But is that really what happened? Yes it happened once. But are Louisiana's politiicians necessarily more extreme than those of other states. Sen. Breaux, for example, was a moderate Democrat.

It is possible for there to be cross party mischief making in an open primary. And I'm a little more convinced of that now. I'm little less certain that open primaries are good ideas. But I'm not yet sold that they are definitely bad ideas.

Technorati tags: open primary, elections, Maryland politics.