“Government funding leads to government dependency and control.”
Duh. We all know that.
When the Republicans moved to keep other-party members from voting in their primary, back in the 1990s (when I was still a Republican), I applauded the effort as an improvement. But it wasn’t perfect, because it still allowed non-affiliated voters (usually called “independents”) to participate in choosing the Republican candidates. Creating a truly private primary for a private organization would have been too much for most citizens to stomach. Besides, the Republicans would have had to pay for the expense of running a primary, something it was incapable of doing.
Alaska’s “open” primary, prior to this 1990s change, allowed any and all eligible voters to make ONE choice from among the “major” and the “minor” candidates that found their way onto the ballot. In 1980, many Republicans, eager to oust Democrat Mike Gravel, voted for his upstart challenger, Clark Gruening, whose name recognition in our state’s history is only exceeded by the Begich family. It worked. Gravel lost the primary and then Frank Murkowski, then identifying himself as a “Reaganaut,” defeated Gruening and won the general election.
In the 1986 race for governor, many conservatives ran against each other, diluting their majority strength, and allowing the RINO liberal Arliss Sturgulewski to win the Republican primary. She unquestionably attracted registered Democrats to vote for her, for the same reason Republicans did that to Gravel in 1980. Sturgulewski predictably lost the general election to the relatively unknown Democrat, Steve Cowper, because the huge number of conservatives had no place to go, and there was truly no substantive difference between the two candidates.
A true “closed” primary would allow ONLY voters who register with that party to participate. If this seems unfair, remember how unfair it is that non-members, whether members of another party or truly non-affiliated, would be allowed to vote in a private selection process for a party they obviously don’t care to join.
I can hear the complaint: “But I don’t always like what the [Democrat/Republican] Party stands for, and I like jumping around to vote for various candidates for various offices, like I do in the general election in November!”
Well, then wait for November.
“But the most important choices are in the primary!”
Then – join the party. Pick your poison. We all have to. It’s an imperfect world and an imperfect system. Perfection belongs to eternity.
So, if a closed primary were to happen once we get rid of RCV, how would the parties PAY for the closed primary?
Let government leave the parties alone – let the parties pay for their independence – and let the citizens become more involved.
Easy. To join party “X” or “Y” or “Z,” you would be required to pay dues. Once paid, you would be registered. The party, not the state, would vet you at the polls. They would set their own rules for eligibility. They would own or rent the polling place. The winner would be certified by the party, whose name would then be presented to the state for the general election, the only state-operated contest which ought to be run by the government.
A party might also allow you to pay the dues at the poll when you vote. If so, the money – paid by check, credit card or whatever method the party decides – would be collected by party volunteers; you would be handed an easily minted ID card or badge, receive the particular party’s ballot, you go vote, they shake your hand, and then you are shown the door. You would be entered instantly into a party and the state’s computer database, and if you were rich enough and inclined to vote again in the other party’s primary, perhaps at a different location and date, state computers would be programmed to notify precinct poll-watchers to deny you ballot access.
But, we really do not even have to use the primary system. We could use the convention system. The true “black-and-blue” political footwork would once again take on new meaning. Organizing on the precinct level would empower local party activists, operating at the grassroots and knowing what the “smell of the sheep” is like. They would get “their people” for “their candidate” into the precinct, district and state conventions, where roll call ballots would choose the general election candidates.
Over 20 years ago, a “flag-of-convenience” candidate, a liberal from Valdez, filed with the now-defunct AIP, which was not running any candidates that year, and ran for governor. To prevent this from happening again, the AIP modified its bylaws and decided to choose its gubernatorial candidate by convention.
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
But the state of Alaska would not allow that. Imagine – the state dictating how a party was to choose their candidates! Let that sink in: government subsidy of primaries means government dependency and control.
But if you want democracy, a convention system would be closer to the real thing. Suddenly, there would be renewed interest and involvement, and no doubt grudgingly by some. Choosing candidates would mandate involvement with a party, because the REAL political decision-making would not hinge on the crisis of one election day, or who had money to drown us with propaganda overload. Politics would be constant, needing months of building trust, holding coffee meets, summer picnics and winter luncheons.
And, party platforms would actually … matter.
If all this sounds imperfect, you are absolutely right. Just as any type of primary that can be devised would be imperfect. We have run out of patience with computerized voting machines, Ranked Choice Voting, ballot harvesting, mail-in and perhaps even phone-in voting someday, and candidates who consider party platforms as something to ignore.
Party politics has always been a matter of organizers and jobbers, many of whom were honest, hard-working citizens – and many who were corrupt. Yet now we have a corrupt state government, and a system where Outside and foreign monies pour into our state, and control us as an easily-picked apple. Most Alaskans are actually fully urbanized in Anchorage, the Mat Valley, Fairbanks, Kenai Peninsula and Juneau. While the others are scattered far and wide, separated in small villages by geography and climate, they could organize the same way there, with the people they know by their reputation and political inclinations.
Let government leave the parties alone – let the parties pay for their independence – and let the citizens become more involved.
The views expressed here are those of the author.
