Open primaries could stymie tea party success

[discocrisco01]

Source: SB Sun

Tea party groups across the country clearly played some part in November's Republican surge, but pinning down the role they played and the role they will play in California politics is tricky.
Local groups saw their influence in a few races and even helped win a few, but statewide, Republicans fared poorly, and tea party groups seemed to be a nonfactor. Changes in how state elections are run could make tea parties less influential in 2012.

"I thought the tea party momentum built up and was victorious, and then when it hit the California border, it came to a screeching halt," said Kelly Good, organizer of the Chino Hills Tea Party. "California is very, very blue. But we had little victories here and there."

Indeed, two local candidates backed by tea party groups managed to overcome more experienced, better-known and better-funded candidates in June's primary elections.

Neither Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Claremont, nor Assemblyman Mike Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga, had ever held elective office before winning their primaries. Both beat more established Republican candidates with the help of tea party members.

And because they ran in Republican-controlled districts, they sailed through the November election.

Read more at http://www.sbsun.com/localcolleges/ci_16939377

[bemildred]

1. What drivel.

The primary effect of closed primaries is to favor the party leadership's candidates. That is what primaries are FOR, to provide time and a mechanism to shape a parties choices for candidate. Open primaries will allow gaming of that system, thus providing another avenue to thwart the public's common will. But it will also allow more outsider candidates to get the party nomination by attracting crossover voters.

IMHO, no primaries would be much better, except that would going back to back-room deals, and that appears unrealistic to me, people will band together to achieve power. We still have back-room deals, having elections for primaries has only hampered - but not eliminated- back-room deals. I don't favor any such changes because a primary is by definition a party function, not a general electorate function, and it is an error to conflate the two.

What we really need is more large and effective parties, to break the hold of the duopoly, to allow all the political voices in our country to find vigorous expression in the halls of power. And that requires an attack on the winner-take-all features of our current system.