Monday, February 23, 2009

Airhead Editorials

I'm not sure if this editorial in the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat is the third, or fourth, editorial I've seen come out in support of the new Open Primary proposal that will be on the ballot later this year. I'm fit to be tied over this. Probably more so than I should be.

I think it just goes to show what airheads there are behind the editorial desks of most of our newspapers.

Seriously; How can anyone think that just because a candidate appeals to middle- of- the- road voters (assuming this Open Primary would accomplish that) he or she can fix a disfunctional state. The majority of voters in California have consistently voted for bond measures, and candidates, that are a big part of the state's financial woes. Somehow, the Open Primary supporters think that this bizarre proposal is going to get government to run better. Unbelievable.

As I've said earlier, I could almost see an open primary where voters could pick their favorite candidates from all the parties. I'm not saying that would be right as I think we need to honor the idea of freedom of non- association. I'm just saying that would almost make some sense in that it might form some sort of consensus as to what most people want in a candidate.

I'm not saying the proposal I've made above would fix California. I'm just saying it makes more sense to me as far as inclusion, assuming inclusion should be taken into consideration, which I'm not so sure it should.

But this idea where you vote for just one of multiple candidates is ridiculous. I suppose it goes to show just how screwed up this state is when so many people think it's a good "first step".

I'll go out on a limb and guess that the Times- Standard comes out in favor of this idea when their time comes to editorialize on it.

2 Comments:

At 9:47 AM, Blogger mresquan said...

"The majority of voters in California have consistently voted for bond measures, and candidates, that are a big part of the state's financial woes."

Perhaps that is because those candidates benfitted greatly from the closed primary system,which can allow candidates and bond measures they support to intermingle much easier.
Personally,I would much prefer a ranked voting system.But anyways I don't think this is any sort of answer to solving any woes,BUT continuing to operate under a closed primary system is pretty ridiculous as well.But yes the open/closed primary issue really is some sort of a scapegoat in figuring out what is going wrong here.But overall and all issues included,I think that the state has run much worse under the closed primary system,due to the advantage given to the candidates who are backed by well funded special interests.

 
At 10:53 AM, Blogger Fred Mangels said...

Regardless of whether one believes in open primaries, or not, I can't believe anyone thinks the silly way this proposal is set up is a good idea.

 

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