Bill King brings the silly
I read with distaste Bill King's Houston Chronicle editorial this morning suggesting that we change the primary system. Among other silliness in his opinion, "fixing the primary system" is a misguided focus and furthermore is rife with opportunities to really screw up our elections.
Like, oh, say California screwed it up. Less than 5 minutes later, I read this in Roll Call:
Rep. Gary Miller (R) not only survived his jungle primary in the totally new, Democratic-leaning 31st district, the endangered lawmaker also finished first and is set to face Republican state Sen. Bob Dutton in the November general election. Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar (D), the favorite to advance in the top-two primary, finished about 1,000 votes short of underdog Dutton after three other Democrats swallowed up a quarter of the vote.
Recap: the district has a Democrat majority. Yet the general election will contain two Republicans. Only California could come up with such a genius nominating system!
This new nominating system was designed by California Democrats to produce more centrist nominees. How did that work out?
We shouldn't just run around changing the rules of the election because they didn't produce the nominees that Bill King would have picked.the new nominating system...was sold to voters in 2010 as a way to ensure that more moderate candidates could win and that those who chose not to affiliate with either party would have a greater chance to win, Los Angeles Democratic Party Chairman Eric Bauman said.
But after an early look at state legislative and Congressional elections across the state, Bauman said it's likely that not one unaffiliated candidate advanced to the Nov. 6 general election. And it's unlikely independent voters' first chance to participate in California primaries in 14 years led to higher turnout.
RELATED: Cory Crow's take is worth a read.
Posted by Evan @ 06/07/12 03:16 PM
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