They’re running ads attacking one of the Goppers running for Governor by saying he voted for things Democrats support, and that makes him bad, but, but, but, that means those things that Democrats support are bad too. And then it says paid for by the DNC or whoever, I’m at work and can barely remember my name let alone some stupidity I saw on teevee, but you get my drift.
I don’t think it’s a particularly smart approach. We’ll see in a couple of weeks.
The system is fine, but only when the party (or someone voters trust) gets involved. Sadly the “primary electorate” in the democratic party is not always picking candidates on “electable.” Luckily, the republicans with the tea party wackos have a bigger problem.
The democratic leadership needs to get involved MORE, not less, when one of these things happen. Let me give an example.
A few weeks ago the “progressive” - a sanders supporter who is pushing for “medicare for all” won the democratic nomination for the House in Omaha NB over a much more moderate candidate and former Representative. The Party stayed out of it, hoping for the right outcome. Oh, and what is the main employer in the Omaha region? Well it’s insurance, specifically health insurance. The seat was rated as a toss-up on the assumption that the more moderate candidate would win, today with a Sanders supported candidate pushing for nationalized healthcare as the Democratic candidate Cook moved the race to “leans R” https://twitter.com/Redistrict?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
If the democrats keep shooting themselves in the foot (or Progressives keep shooting them in the head) Trump is going to have a Republican House to defend him come January 2019, and will have four years of complete control of the government.
Not getting involved has potentially catastrophic consequences. The Naderites don’t care, I do.
No, the jungle primary system (which I was referring to) is absolutely not fine. It is right up there with super-majority rules that actually make govt ungovernable.
Otherwise, I don’t disagree with you.
I think of myself as a tough-minded realist, but this is the kind of dirty-tricks strategy I expect from Republicans. That’s not a compliment.
If a few more jumped into the race, we’d have to set up a Congressional district to represent the candidates.
There is one efficiency to the current strategy – if somehow, Liberatore does get one of the top two primary slots, the Dems can just re-use the exact same material, just mailing preferentially to likely (D) voters.
The top-two primary system was a Noble Experiment™, intended to break the pattern where the most extreme sides of both parties would prevail in the low-turnout primaries, leading to situations where none of the candidates in the general election appealed to the possibly hypothetical moderate majority of voters.
It turns out to be dangerously vulnerable to gaming by one side, or lousy party discipline by the other, take your pick.
The elephant in the room is that the current system is stupid. Instant runoff voting is the only genuinely democratic way to conduct elections but no-one is willing to go for it because it would create a multi-party system, which can’t be allowed to happen.
Right, the jungle primary is supposed to weed out the wing nuts. My coworker used to point that out to me all the time. It’s just that this country has a flaming asshole as prez and I don’t want any chance of another as my representative in Congress
if the mailers are true, then the democrats should’ve grown a pair of balls and told everybody who sent the mailer. i’ve seen people on these message boards eviscerate republicans for doing the same thing. if secret, black-ops tactics are bad for one side, they’re bad for everybody. that’s what makes it dirty.