A system that makes having more candidates a bad thing? Love it!
Such bullshit. You don’t win the championship by hoping you only play against the weakest teams. You win by putting your best team on the field. The Dems need to be powerfully pro choice, public healthcare, free college, pro Dreamer, pro labor, higher taxes on the superrich, pro public school, anti charter, pro green energy, etc. This is simple stuff. The Dems need to stop trying to game the system and thread the needle. It’s too late for that. Whoever the Repubs put up in Issa’s spot should be crushed. Bring it.
Shorter DCCC: “Democracy sucks!”
This is excellent news for John McCain!
We don’t have direct democracy. We have indirect democracy, which works a lot better. And we have what Justice Cardozo called “ordered liberty.” While I agree that the cure for the ills of democracy is usually more democracy, California may have gone too far (probably because Democrats thought they could box Republicans out of elections as, indeed, they did in the 2016 Senate race). But we’re stuck with that system for now. So, time for the Democrats to proved Will Rogers wrong, for once, and get organized. Make it clear to weak candidates that they need to get out of the way. Indeed, unless it’s clear that the two top candidate will be Democrats, the party should do all it can to clear the field for the strongest person to win the primary, and the general.
This is too important to let egos get in the way.
Democrats run CA - just change the system. Dems have their primary, Rs have their’s and they face off in the general. Simple.
This jungle primary thing is kind of strange to begin with. How does it even make any sense?
Didn’t bother reading the article, I see. If you did read it, that’s even worse since you clearly didn’t understand it even on a basic level . . .
Sounds like it’s time for a few Democrats to put country and party above personal ambition and opportunism. Do it right, CA.
Yes, but which Democrats? Everyone in the race will think everyone else should make the sacrifice.
Totally agree. Why don’t CA legislature Dems just fix this problem and go back to the party primary system? They’re in control. Stop shooting us all in the foot.
I thought it was always conserative republicans that cared about what others blow?
There are still 300 some odd days left of Mueller drip, drip, drip before the election.
Please, start listening to the young.
I was thinking retaining a cyber prosecutor was more of a firm thud than a drip.
What, exactly, do you mean?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. California’s jungle primary was enacted by the voters, who approved this system 54 to 46 percent, back in 2010. The CA legislature can’t simply undo what the voters put in place.
That’s always been a problem with the California initiative system. Really complex issues get put on the ballot simply by virtue of collecting enough petition signatures. Registered voters cavalierly sign petitions with no concept of how complex the issues are. People get paid to collect petition signatures by telling folks, “Your signature doesn’t mean you agree with the measure. You’re just signing the petition to give voters a chance to make the decision.” Yeah, right, but voters don’t have full-time staff to research the details and instead they end up voting on issues based on advertising rather than serious review. I think CA desperately needs to revise the initiative system, but good luck with that.
But there’s a limit to what the party can do. If there are three candidates who all have access to plenty of money, how does the party have any leverage to force any of them out?
Enacted by the voters: Proposition 14 in 2010.
Another bad idea via ballot initiative.
Fretting about a problem isn’t a solution to it. The Jungle Primary is a freak in American politics and should be on the California Democrats list of things needing “reform”. But until that’s done they should solve the problem. Since they’ve defined it perfectly that should be easy. You run one candidate. Don’t worry about the ego’s or money political wannabes have just make a concerted effort to let the public know they get nothing if they play ball with them. Issa represents a upscale district that’s shown Blue tendencies of late. It shouldn’t be hard to educate that district. They’ve defined their problem. Solve it don’t fret about it.