Closed primaries and “radicalization”

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Jazz Shaw
9/5/11

The mixed bag which our political parties use across the various states to select candidates has always been a bone of contention. In what is probably a healthy development, we seem to be moving toward a somewhat more standardized system of primaries rather than caucus arrangements. (Democrats will have 37 primaries next year and Republicans 42.) But the other question which is still clearly in flux is whether those primaries should be open – allowing independents, or even members of the opposition, to participate – or closed to party members only.

Mark Siegel, at the Washington Post, tackles the question today, coming at it from the perspective of someone who helped close the primary process for Democrats over the years but is now having second thoughts.

(Snip)

The two chief arguments against this are easy to find. First, how small of a “tent” do you want and how damaging is it to have a variety of opinions and ideologies represented in the primary? Second, and perhaps more of a pragmatic notion, is the issue of electability – a subject which seems to have become a dirty word of late. After the base from each party selects the nominees, the center picks the winner every four years. At what point does purity cross the line to the Pyrrhic?

We have a bit of a laboratory to examine these patterns in the form of the New Hampshire primary. Due to the rules of the road in the Granite State it’s fairly easy for independents to vote in either primary. This produces an interesting, somewhat oscillating set of results over the years.

(Snip)
So which one produces the more desirable result? And, perhaps more importantly, which one produces a candidate most likely to not only win the primary race, but the general election. Here’s the record of who has won in New Hampshire going back to the late 1940′s. You be the judge.


I have always been a fan of closed primaries/caucuses, but I may have to rethink this.