Who's the next Governor of Maryland (North Beach: camp, suburban, horse)

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by MrRational

How about educating the end zone populace to avoid the rhetoric and focus on issues that
effect the entire electorate so that the even better people but perhaps less extreme would run?
Yeah, I think I'd rather have more choices than just rejiggering the choices already there.


Cyndi Lauper "True Colors" - YouTube

Eliminating extreme candidates doesn't serve democracy. The more choices the electorate has the better. Moderate candidates are at an inherent disadvantage in a closed primary system. Turnout for primaries is abysmally low, and skewed toward the fringes of both parties. Opening up the primary doesn't guarantee a moderate candidate will win, but it gives them a potential campaign strategy that doesn't exist currently.

As for educating voters. Good luck on that one.

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

It also doesn't benefit a minority party. Going back to Ehrlich, do you really think, knowing kathleen KENNEDY townsend's shortcomings, that there wouldn't have been a concerted effort by Democrats to cross vote in an open primary for Ehrlich's primary opponent? I forget who that was but for some reason I think one of them was Robin Ficker from Montgomery County.

I think the idea that an open primary system can be "rigged" by the other party is giving the average voter way too much credit. It takes a pretty good amount of political knowledge, strategy, and willingness to act as an outcome based political agent, rather than a simple voter, to pull it off.

There simply aren't enough people that are capable/willing to do that to make it matter in most years. Even with a 2-1 registration advantage, you would need 100s of thousands of nefarious Democratic voters to cross over and scuttle the GOP primary. I don't think political parties are organized enough to pull this off, they have enough problems getting people show up...period.

Secondly, I don't think the average voter would vote in "bad faith" like that. I sincerely believe any politician or affliated PAC that put out a message along those lines would hurt their own reputation more than the affecting the outcome of the other primary.

Besides, this can be done already. I know many people that pick which party to register with before every primary. Sometimes to pick a favored candidate, sometimes to scuttle the chances of someone they don't like. Making this process easier may lead to more of it, but again you need to decend down pretty far into the inner worlds of campaign and elections to justify that type of action. Not many people are there.

Contrast this with a open primary, and a simple message from a candidate that they would welcome votes from anyone interested in their candidacy. Again, there is risk involved. But the message is one of inclusion, rather than political sabotage.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by westsideboy

Eliminating extreme candidates doesn't serve democracy.

Who said anything bout eliminating them? Have them to your hearts content...
The suggestion is to allow viable alternative choices to have a chance as well.

At present they are closed out of the process BECAUSE they won't pass muster with the endzone.
The endzone populace (which I recognize includes a lot of those reading here) IS the problem.

Do something about or at least have some meaningful influence on the policy and governance issues that actually matter.

[westsideboy]

Originally Posted by MrRational

How about educating the end zone populace to avoid the rhetoric and focus on issues that
effect the entire electorate so that the even better people but perhaps less extreme would run?
Yeah, I think I'd rather have more choices than just rejiggering the choices already there.


Cyndi Lauper "True Colors" - YouTube

Umm...you mentioned something about less extreme politicans running for office. Sorry if I interpreted it wrong.

Honestly, I don't know what you mean when you say "the endzone population." And what it takes to pass muster with them.

If it is a generalized statement that American voters tend to be undereducated on the issues, the candidates, and the workings of government, I agree. I don't know how to fix that. It is the problem that anyone who does campaign work struggles with; how to engage and educate a voting populace that tends to react negatively to most forms of campaigning and media coverage of politics.

[HurricaneDC]

Vote HurricaneDC '14

[phlinak]

Originally Posted by MrRational

You have it backwards.
It's the Republicans who need to be dragged back to the middle.



What you're seeing is defense of gains achieved against those who will attempt to re-fight
their lost battles from decades past over and over and over again hoping to gain one small
crumb of their agenda at a time.



And the Republican leadership is more than happy to have you make their illogical fight for them.
If the Republicans were to abandon these hot button social issues or at least to (genuinely!)
set them aside as political rallying cries then the debate might be able to focus on the fiscal
and administrative policy matters that government is supposed to be about.

By allowing the zealots on the right to become the leaders and by that leadership force
the party to focus on these peripheral and social issues... you (in turn) force the zealots
on the left to defend against encroachment of their hard won rights.

Being divisive and obstinate for it's own sake seems to be preferred to governance.
It's political terrorism right out of the PLO handbook.

[ToneGrail]

I would say that it's BOTH the Republicans and Democrats that need to be dragged back to the middle.

Since the Vietnam War, the Democrats, who used to be a party of staunch anti-communism ala JFK has become dominated by a base of defeatist hard-left ideologues who want to transform the country into a Eurostype politically correct socialist republic and think that by appeasing our enemies they will refrain from attacking us.

The Republicans, once the party of Eisenhower, Ford, and Nixon, who viewed Barry Goldwater as their far-right bogeyman, now is dominated by those who view Goldwater as a pro-abortion, pro-gay, Anti-religious-right RINO.

Pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me. It has much to do with our binary political winner-take-all system.

[InvaderBryce]

Originally Posted by ToneGrail

I would say that it's BOTH the Republicans and Democrats that need to be dragged back to the middle.

Since the Vietnam War, the Democrats, who used to be a party of staunch anti-communism ala JFK has become dominated by a base of defeatist hard-left ideologues who want to transform the country into a Eurostype politically correct socialist republic and think that by appeasing our enemies they will refrain from attacking us.

The Republicans, once the party of Eisenhower, Ford, and Nixon, who viewed Barry Goldwater as their far-right bogeyman, now is dominated by those who view Goldwater as a pro-abortion, pro-gay, Anti-religious-right RINO.

Pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me. It has much to do with our binary political winner-take-all system.

You had me until your last paragraph. I see nothing wrong with the current system and I think it's the best system for a country of this size.

[Tom Lennox 70]

I hope it will be Neil Parrott or Pat McDonough. I fear though that even with all the tax hikes and toll increases a Democrat will still win. Neil Parrot is a hero who helped petition THREE liberal elite laws to the ballot. It will be amazing if illegal immigration, gay marriage, and the redistricting are all overturned. Pat McDonough says things like it is and was also instrumental in standing up against the illegal immigrants, and also spoke out extensively against the toll hikes. Of all the Dems, Peter Fronchot is more reasonable, he was against at least SOME of the tax hikes. And I don't think he supports illegal immigration the way O'Malley does.

Lord have mercy on us if anyone from Montgomery County or Howard County wins.

[andrew_s]

Originally Posted by Tezcatlipoca

Maryland politics in a nutshell.

Correction i95 corridor politics in a nutshell. Nobody there cares about the more rural parts of the state, its as if it doesnt exist, just like how people judge/sum up the entire state just from the drive up or down 95...