Eliminating Primaries To Save Money

3 Responses to “Eliminating Primaries To Save Money”

1. spaz writes
   October 23rd, 2009 10:25 am

   There’s good and bad in this idea.

   The good is that you would, in fact, save a lot of money which isn’t entirely justified since Tennesseans are bad voters and don’t turn out for elections anyway.

   The bad is that it leaves the local parties responsible for picking their candidates. Very little good will come from that because they will end up picking ideologues instead of people who have the best real qualifications. Can you imagine having to vote in a county commission election where the Democrat and Republican have gotten where they were based on their stances on healthcare? Or abortion? Things that have nothing to do with a county commissioner.

   And this question needs to be asked: Why are political parties even involved in county elections? County and city offices shouldn’t even be partisan. Maybe that’s the way to save the money in a primary - just make all the local elections nonpartisan like school board races.

2. hank writes
   October 23rd, 2009 1:05 pm

   Caucuses take power away from the public and give it to a select few activists. It’s a return to decisions being made in cigar-filled rooms. If they want to save money, go to non-partisian elections. No one has yet been able to prove to me that partisan politics on the local level makes for better government. It just gets the rabid partisans another way to conduct their witchhunts.

3. Mark Rogers writes
   October 23rd, 2009 11:15 pm

   Spaz and Hank,

   Each of you hits on a legitimate issue, the question of what would happen to the level of participation if we moved to caucuses. And there is considerable evidence that, at least initially, the most motivated voters would dominate.

   However, I tend to think that in short order, dissatisfaction with parties dominated by ideologues would force the American people to get up off their couches and get involved. That would be the start of a renewed political system and a chance to get real reform.

   As a Conservative, I have an abiding Faith in the essential Goodness and Wisdom of the American People. We have made politics too divorced from citizens. The myth that voting is the most important part of our political process has damaged us. We need to help people learn that participating in politics is more important than our individual votes.

   When people remember that they are the government and that they have a responsibility to participate, we will achieve better government. To believe otherwise is to tacitly admit that our Democracy has failed.