Disenfranchised Republicans: The Great Primary Election Rip-off of 2008
Well, John McCain has the 2008 Republican nomination for president locked up now that Romney has dropped out of the race. The problem is that I didn’t get to vote. I wrote here that reform is needed of the primary election process. While I live in Texas, many people in other states also did not get to vote during the period when the presidential Republican primary race was still competitive. So this is democracy?
Besides Texas, the other states where Republican voters had no real input in picking the presidential nominee for the Republican Party are: Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Mississippi, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Washington, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Nebraska, Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, New Mexico, and South Dakota.
I doubt if I will even bother to vote in the primary now. What’s the point, the race is already decided. And since I am not too excited about the McCain nomination, I care even less to vote. (But of course I will vote in the general election.)
It may make for a less interesting drama to have nearly all states vote in the Republican primary on the same day, but I don’t see any way around it. Just like when we vote in the general election, it is clear that you can’t let many states vote earlier than other states. Otherwise the votes toward the end are meaningless.
Personally, like others in Texas and the states listed above, I don’t like being disenfranchised in the 2008 Republican presidential primary elections. What a rip-off.
February 9th, 2008 at 1:41 am
All states should have their primaries on the same day.
If no candidate wins 50% or more of the vote in any state, there should have to be a run-off in that state among the top two vote-getters.
That would eliminate all the triangulation, hokey alliances, people voting for Huckabee to deny Romney this or that. MOST IMPORTANTLY______YOU SHOULD HAVE TO BE A REPUBLICAN to vote in the Republican primary. Democrats now know they will be getting a liberal candidate in every election, and many (especiallly in Florida) voted for McCain because they want shamnesty and the most unappealing candidate for conservatives to supress the vote in November.
I dont konw if it would be wise for us to hope Hillary wins or not. IF she won, she would have one year and a half before the next election cycle started in earnest, when hopefully a huge republican majority in congress could be elected to tie her hands. Im afraid McCain will push his immigration deform plan on day one or early in his presidency to “get it over with” and to take the issue off the table. If it passed, and was signed into law by a republican president, the republicans would get creamed in the 2010 elections in all probability.
If it passes, it will also be the death-knell forevermore of fiscal conservatism and unified (non-multicultural) culture. We will have a very left party, and a center-left party, and that will be that when we give voting priveleges to 20 million plus hispanics who vote democrat 70% of the time, with about two million more coming per year. There will be no chance of a Reagan-like candidate ever winning again, and we will slouch towards being a new France.
Make no mistake, this election is a disaster for us if McCain does what I think he will do early in his presidency. Obama was in California promising drivers liscences to illegals, and voted for Shamnesty, so we know where he stands.
There is simply no good option in this election for a Reagan-Democrat (like me). It would take a miracle for Huckabee to catch McCain. I suppose someone could run third party (Paul?), but its unlikely unless they were backed with enough dough to run a zillion ads. McCain wants to “reform” campain finance in such a way as to make it impossible for anyone but party hacks to use much money also, which is another reason why I think his ideas are ridiculously pro-establishment.
Quite frankly, it looks like that “North American Union” thingy is going to come by default whether it was someone’s real idea or a kook assertion or not. Can you imagine America in 30 more years? Boomers will have pretty much died out, whites will be outnumbered and the slowest breeding. The populace will be mostly minorities who believe they deserve their “fair share”. I think leftism will run rampant myself, but maybe the powers-that-be-in the GOP figure they will be too stupid to vote. I cannot fathom why they are pushing this importation of a new populace that will not be voting for them. Perhaps short term-greed is all they can think about and believe they will be able to turn off the immigration spigot ten years down the line when they have all the cheap labor they need to break unions or whatever, but these are human beings, not machines. They behave how they want to, and dont even really tune into “our” media, so they are much more resistant to propaganda that guilty whites are.
I look to have a warlette with Iran in the next administration if its McCain or Hillary to be honest, and have to wonder about an occupation. How in the hell are we going to keep getting people to lend us money for all of this I’ll never know. Are we really willing to destroy our credit rating to fufill the Likudniks foreign policy wishes? Long-term in America…………………the future looks quite muddled to me. The next 20 years might be pretty good though, but the cows will come home someday for all we are doing now just like the cows came home for the Spanish empire when they bet the farm on finding tons of new world gold and didn’t develop a productive enough economy back home in the fifteenth and sixteenth centurires.
February 9th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
I agree with you 100%, it’s not right (and undemocratic) that Iowa and New Hampshire get to decide who gets to be president.
February 9th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I see some merit in having it all in one day, but I also see some merit in breaking it down to 3 or 4 different days seperated by two to four weeks each.
Plain and simple if we had it in one day we would have Clinton against Guiliani. But because we had it split up a little more it looks like it might instead be Obama against McCain. Actually I think splitting it up a little allows us to find out a little bit more about each candidate and doesn’t let the media pick the candidate as much. They still have a lot of weight in how they and how much they report about each candidate, but possibly a little less with the vote strung out a little bit.
I am in one of the states that still has not voted just like you Dan, but I still plan on voting and I will be casting my vote for Ron Paul. While I have had a lot more in common with Paul’s vision than the other candidates and have planned on voting for him for some time, I really think it is even more important to vote for him now. He needs as many votes as possible to show McCain and the other elites in the Rep. party that financial conservatism, libertarianism, defensive foreign policy rather than offensive, and social tolerance still has a large following and cannot be dismissed. If does not get the votes it will be seen that McCains views of much larger gov’t, offensive foreign policy, nanny/police state, social engineering are the views that the Rep party will push even further towards. Ultimately this will kill the republican party but at our expense in the wallet and in our liberties.
February 10th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Terry P,
Id either have them ALL IN ONE DAY, or have them broken up in 4 days over a 2 month period (every two weeks) which groups of about 12 states all get to vote at once.
HOWEVER IT IS IMPRERATIVE that there be run-offs among the top two vote-getters if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. Its WRONG for a guy who has a solid twenty-five percent everywhere to get the nomination because four other people are running, splitting up the opposition vote up over and over and letting him win, and making him —uanavoidable— or the —obvious—choice, etc. I wouldn’t put it past the democrats to start funding a “rapture” reverend to run in Republican primaries again and again and making the Christian right vote useless much like Huckabee has this time around. We open ourselves up to endless triangluation and quadrangulation by allowing open primaries and non-majority “winners” to win, and also recieve all the votes for doing so. Its plain wrong for McCain to have gotten -all- of Florida’s delegates by getting 30-something percent of the Floridian vote while Romeny also took over 30 percent of their vote. McCain was way ahead of Romney when he quit the race, 729-293 in delegates, but only led in actual votes by 4.7 million to about 4 million, yet he had over twice the delegates to the convention.
February 10th, 2008 at 1:01 am
TerryP,
I think splitting it up a little allows us to find out a little bit more about each candidate and doesn’t let the media pick the candidate as much.
I am sympathetic to this, but no matter how you group the states to vote at different times, the group that votes last often will cast votes that don’t matter. So, like I said in an older post, I could see having one state (or maybe even two or three) vote early based on a nationwide lottery within a party, but then I think all the rest of the states should vote on the same day.
Regarding Ron Paul, I don’t dislike him and I like that he has added a principled voice to the Republican primary debates. However, he loses me when he goes on and on about the Federal Reserve and the gold standard. And he is idealistic in wanting the US to immediately stop being the world’s policeman - but I just know who else is going to do it.
miles,
I agree that when you write: “YOU SHOULD HAVE TO BE A REPUBLICAN to vote in the Republican primary”. If parties don’t limit those who vote in the primaries to their own party, it seems to undermine the whole idea of a party as a non-government entity.
I also like the idea of a run-off in states, although I must admit that I haven’t given it a lot of thought. One thing is that it would seem like there would be an awful lot of run-off elections. People would have to vote twice in the primaries.
February 10th, 2008 at 10:46 am
[...] Update: Thoughts on the 2008 election - “Disenfranchised Republicans: The Great Primary Election Rip-off of 2008“. [...]
February 10th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Dan wrote, “People would have to vote twice in the primaries”
Thats a good thing. It will get to be a better thing in the future as more and more voters will be leftys in general. The people who know just how important it is will still bother to vote.
You mentioned Ron Paul………………..just think about it: we could actually end the war in Iraq immediately by electing Paul or could extend it “100 years” in occupation with McCain. These words are from the candidates own mouths. If we had elected Tancredo, we’d have a large border wall and an end to illegal immigration. If we elect Obama, we will have more illegals than ever in all probability. The office of president has become so powerful post-new-deal, that its the one office than can absolutely change the nation’s direction. If Reagan-like presidents had been in office since 1988, this nation would be much better off than what it is by now, but weve had twenty years of Bush’s and Clinton’s.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Miles
I agree that we need some type of run-off system and I also don’t like the winner take all system. A better way may be preference voting or a rank voting system that would take out the people on the bottom until one person reaches a majority of the vote.
Dan,
Any voting system that is not all in one day will have the potential to have states that don’t matter. My suggestion is to move around which groups of states are first and which ones are last. One year a certain group of states are first then the next cycle they are fourth, the next cycle they are third, and then next cycle they are second and so on. The biggest thing is that you can’t always have the same states first and the same states last as we do now.
Quite honestly I hate parties and wish that system just ended. Here locally it is a pretty big republican area but still likely only around 50% of the voting population once you count independents. For certain races we may have two or three republicans run in the primary with only republicans being able to vote for them. Once you get to the general election there is only one candidate to vote for, this is before more than 50% of the voting population was even able to vote for a candidate. That just doesn’t seem right to me.
I actually prefer our system for voting for our state legislators. It is non-partisan. In the primaries it is knocked down to two people and then in the general election it gets down to the winner. While it is non-partisan you usually know from what party the candidates are from. It gives everyone a chance to vote.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Your title Disenfranchised Republicans seems a little sour grapes. Maybe for once Republicans will feel like independents and third party people have for years. Maybe it will want to get them to reform our voting system but I am not holding my breathe, because even if they do, it will be to change it only towards their advantage not to the general voters advantage.
February 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
i really like the way the system is now, excepting the fact that the primaries are in the same order every election. the public needs time to get to know the candidates–having one random state before all the others gives that one state a ridiculous amount of political power if one candidate manages to campaign well there. the variety of states holding early primaries give the country a good look at candidates and a chance to narrow down their choices, similar to a runoff system, and then “super tuesday” allows many of the remaining states to come together at once and make a decision. the later primaries serve a purpose in allowing a response to super tuesday, if one is necessary, and give the public one last chance to ensure they make the right choice–and this has happened in several recent elections. sure, some voters voices ring louder than others, but how do arizona democrats feel right now, knowing that their voice will be silenced in the general election because the republican candidate is from their state? it is a political reality, and i think this year the primary system has undoubtedly got things right
February 12th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Dylan,
having one random state before all the others gives that one state a ridiculous amount of political power
Actually, a single state would serve only as a get to know the candidate forum, kind of like Iowa and New Hampshire do today. And I am thinking that maybe two random states would be better than just one.
Also, I don’t find the drawn out process enlightening as far as the candidates go. We get to watch some personal drama, but we learn little knew information about what policies they might implement as president. I think it is an illusion that we are getting to know more about them as the campaign draws out. All of the information was already available. People just don’t bother to look into candidates positions early on. I know that I am guilty of that.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
What about:
Group 1: half the states vote - Early Feb
Group 2: remaining half, plus runoffs where there was no majority winner - Early Mar
Group 3: runoffs (if needed) for the states in group 2 where there was no majority winner - Early Apr
As to getting to know the candidates, forget about it, I thought that way too, but running a huge national campaign is a better test, and it’s not 1860 or even 1960 where a tour of the nation is needed.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t mind a no runoff primary system, if we had a run off in the general.
February 14th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Brendan,
That’s not bad if it could be shown that after Group1 votes that Group2 votes can remain decisive. A complete blow-out during Group1 voting might make Group2 votes not worthwhile, but then that might never occur. So I would rather have fewer states in Group 1.
My first post on this said a single state only in Group 1. I guess that is too minimalistic. But I see some value in limiting the number of states in Group 1 so that candidates have to focus on a few states. That retains an appealing element of today’s system. Otherwise the two giant voting groups could make us have basically two elections, each representing 150 million people. That might not be much different than just having one voting day, perhaps followed by a run-off.
February 18th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I agree. I have been complaining about being disenfranchised for several weeks now. I’m so upset. We are drilled by politicians and teachers that the way we get our say in our gov. is our vote, but I don’t feel I got any say this time. A few states got to pick for the whole country! I understand that smaller states want to “count too.” This way is no more fair; it just disenfranchises bigger states with more people who should count as well.
February 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 am
I disagree that John McCain has the Republican nomination “locked up.” While he will most likely be the nominee, the fact that Huckabee and Paul won’t drop out signals there is much dissatisfaction within the party. They will carry their delegates to the convention in order to shape the conversation and set the platform. You DO have a say in your Texas election on March 4. Please vote! Nordy in Minnesota
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:19 am
Nordy,
While that is good point that people staying in the race could impact McCain some, I think that effect is minor. McCain will ignore Paul completely. Huckabee could cause McCain to pay more attention to the social conservatives, but McCain already keeps them in mind. So I don’t see my vote being worth anything. We are supposed to vote to pick the nominees, not to hope to slightly sway the positions of the pre-selected nominee.
March 6th, 2008 at 3:49 am
I COULDN’T AGREE MORE WITH THE STATEMENT ABOVE!
READ MY MIND!
SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE! WHEN YOU’RE THE STATE LEFT AT THE END , YOU FEEL USELES! WHY BOTHER GETTING OUT OF BED AN GO TO THE POLLS? OUR VOTES DON’T MATTER ANY WAY!.
I AGREE WE SHOULD ALL VOTE ON CERTAIN DAY LIKE WE DO FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION.
I MEAN COME ON FAIR IS FAIR!
OH, WAIT NO IT ISN’T!
October 3rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
What happens if two candidates get the same number of votes?