To all who are annoyed by D incumbents having to face primary challenges

[CTLawGuy]

I have a suggestion for you that might make you happy.

Move to China,

There, the party leaders pick all the candidates, and since there's one party, your party will always win.

Since I know you only care about winning, and not who wins (as long as he's on your team), you'll be happy as the guy on your team constantly gets "reelected".

Me, I'll keep my popular sovereignty and popular choice of candidates. I want to pick who best represents me, and if it's not the D incumbent, that's too damn bad.

And once you get to China, send one poor Chinese person back to the US, who desperately wants a chance to participate in a political process where their views have meaning, even if they are members of the Democratic party.

[The Magistrate]

1. That Is Rather An Over-Statement, Sir

Primary elections are not a necessaery part of popular sovereignity: they are merely one method by which the private organization of the political party may select its candidates. Popuklar sovereignity resides in the general election in which the candidates of the different parties contend for office.

Primaries, as a means of selecting a party's candidates, are hardly without flaw. Several of these are easily listed. They often serve as a testing ground for attacks on a candidate the enemy may well find useful in the general election, and give these a veneer of bi-partisan consensus that makes defence against them more difficult. They often lead to a party selecting candidates with little mainstream appeal, however popular they me among the most committed of a party's adherents. They frequentyly consume monies that could be better spent in contesting against rivals from another party in the general election.

[CTLawGuy]

3. Thanks for the response!

but I disagree obviously.

In our two party system, because of the horrible "plurality wins" rule, people are stuck with two candidates. Third parties cannot get a foot in the door because of concerns of splitting the vote.
So often, people will make the decision to vote based on stopping the person they like the lesser.

That's not really popular sovereingty (especially for party members) - 2 choices, with one being unpalatable.

The Democratic party is a private organization of which we, the registered members, all control (or should).

The primary system is the best way to exercise that control.

You say that it is a testing ground for attacks? It's the opposite. It exhausts attacks by making them old news by the election. It propels the strongest candidate to the nomination.

The party's strongest adherents SHOULD select the candidates. They care the most. They are the most passionate supporters and as such should have the privilege of selecting our nominees.

Finally, if incumbents have such trouble raising money that they can't afford a primary, what good are they? Howard Dean raised record money over the 'net using small dollar donations. The reason such incumbents have trouble raising money is that they probably don't appeal to the base. The republican are successful because the base is enthusiastically behind their candidates.

Money should not be an object, and any inconvenience lost due to lack of money can be replaced by the number of disillusioned we can bring into the Dem fold by having a strong primary system that respect the views of rank and file dems.

If we reject primaries, what's the point of being a dem? why not be an independent, so then the dems will pay attention to you? Is this the incentive structure you want? if you're a dem, the party doesn't care, but if you an indy, the party kisses your ass? No wonder party registration is way down over the last few decades.

[The Magistrate]

8. As You Observe, Sir, Our Views Differ Somewhat

And to be precise, my objection is more to the idealizing of primaries as an absolute good in and of themselves than to the reality of the process in many instances. It would hardly alter, for example, my party affiliation if the Democratic Party ceased to use this device altogether; it would still seem to me to have considerable point to be an adherent of the Party.

Primaries certainly do not exhaust attacks or render them old news. Here in Illinois, to name both an old and a current example, the attacks some years ago in the Democratic gubernatorial primary against Rep. Poshard were echoed, and effectively so, by Ryan in his run for the office, and today, attack lines exploited by Oberweiss against Topinka are being echoed effectively by Gov. Blagojevitch's campaign.

The claim that the most committed party members should select the candidate has a superficial appeal as rhetoric, but often does fail of success in the general election, and on both sides of the divide. The Illinois state Republican Party has on several occassions doomed itself in statewide races by selecting candidates who had great appeal in primaries to its extreme conservative membership but offended the sensibilities of most votyers in the state, and our Democratic Party has managed the same trick on occassion. What makes for popularity among the most convinced odeologues is by no means necessarily what makes for popularity among the general voting public.

Whether a candidate funds raising funds easy or difficult does not effect the general principle that there is a limit to the suppl of funds, and that expenditures not aimed directly at the defeat of the foe in the general election amount to a species of wasted effort.

It is worth remembering that persons rise to leadership positions in a political party by display of axcumen at the trade of politics, by winning, or master-minding the winning, of political campaigns, and by turning out voters to support the Party's candidates. They may be fairly said, therefore, to represent the membership of the Party, and to have established their skill at the tasks that the Party must succeed at to place its representatives in office in government.

[bluestateguy]

2. Just as long as you vote the party ticket in November

Primaries can be a good thing. They are a good venue for all of the ideologues to blow off a little steam, to vent and to pout. I have no problem with that. But then when the primaries are over it's time for us all to be adults and vote the party ticket in the fall election.

I support Ned Lamont in Connecticut by the way.

[BOSSHOG]

4. Just like it works in the presidential elections

Vote for the democrat of your choice in the primary; then vote for the democrat in the general (IN ALL ELECTIONS.)

As Blue State Guy says (kinda) when the primaries are over, lets kick some republican ass.

[CTLawGuy]

6. I agree

I think party membership should come with a contract stating a moral duty:

The party leaders agree not to interfere with, or take sides in, or discourage, primary challenges, even to incumbents, thus providing dems with a voice in the party and giving people an incentive to join the party.

The party rank and file agree that in exchange for this promise, they promise to support the democratic nominee in the general election, thus allowing candidates to reach out to independents.

[emulatorloo]

5. Sounds like a straw man to me

1. Work for and Vote for the dem you like in the primary

2. Work for and Vote for the dem who won in the general

This is standard dem operating procedure.

[CTLawGuy]

7. not really

a lot of people are upset and whine that people shouldn't challenge our incumbents.

Party leaders interfere in primaries, like Schumer in the OH senate race, and the head of the CT Dem party in the CT senate race.

The party brass does NOT like primaries.

[wyldwolf]

9. Just as long as you don't pout, take your ball, and go home when..

...the primary challengers to the Democratic incumbants lose.

As for me, I'll vote for the Democrat everytime. As for the would-be "DINO Slayers," you can't depend on them to vote our way when their personal political idol loses. That is, if you take their word for it.

[SaveElmer]

10. And they call themselves the base...

Seems to me the base would not so willfully and so often threaten to abandon the party...

[CTLawGuy]

11. Ask Joe Lieberman why he won't commit to support the winner

of the CT senate primary?