Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 7, 1994 TAG: 9402180017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Let's require Democrats and Republicans to hold primary elections to nominate their candidates for major statewide offices. Party insiders may be displeased, but election laws don't exist for their pleasure. The laws are supposed to serve the public's interest in fair and open elections. Voting shouldn't have to be a hassle.
Why primaries? Because they are fairer and more open than caucuses and conventions, where the outcome can be manipulated by party bosses or by unrepresentative, emotionally charged activists pursuing narrow agendas. In general, conventions narrow voter participation. Primaries broaden it.
Of course, it wasn't commitment to little "d" democracy that prompted the Virginia Democrats' State Central Committee to hold a primary election this year to nominate that party's U.S. Senate candidate. When the decision was made, then-Gov. Douglas Wilder was expected to challenge incumbent Sen. Charles Robb. Wilder was pressing for a primary. The committee went along to end the threat that Wilder, if he didn't get his way, might run as an independent - thereby turning the general election into a three-way contest in which both big "D" Democrats, Robb and Wilder, could lose to Republican Oliver North.
In Virginia, that's pretty much been the story of primaries. Party governing boards sporadically and reluctantly have opted for primaries only if thorny political circumstances dictated. The advancement of little "d" democracy hasn't been a major consideration.
Party architects and engineers do have some valid reasons for disliking primaries. The Democrats' gubernatorial primary in 1977 and the GOP gubernatorial primary in 1989 produced general-election losers. But, again, party panjandrums' druthers shouldn't decide the organization of elections.
In almost every other state, primaries to nominate candidates for major statewide offices are required by law. Virginia is in a small minority where the legislature has left the primary-vs.-convention decision to the discretion of party officials. And in no other state have party officials so consistently decided against primaries.
None of the arguments raised by primary opponents is compelling:
Primaries are too costly. They afford an unfair advantage to well-heeled candidates. A primary campaign can so sponge up resources that the winner is financially hobbled for the general-election effort.
True enough. But these problems could be offset with reasonable campaign-finance reforms, including the introduction of limited, voluntary public financing of campaigns. Requiring both parties to hold primaries would remove any unfair advantage. Plus, as Gov. George Allen's landslide victory over Democrat Mary Sue Terry showed, the candidate holding the moneybags doesn't always carry the day.
Intraparty warfare is more likely in a media-intensive primary than in a convention contest. Nominees may be locked into unpopular positions and their warts and foibles revealed. All of which can be exploited later by a general- election opponent.
Perhaps. But conventions, often dominated by special interests or ideologues, also can lock nominees into unpopular positions. Primaries give nominees an opportunity to hone political skills, to test-run positions, to iron out wrinkles in campaign organization and strategy. They also give the parties a means of testing their candidates, to ensure that the most electable ones get on the ballot.
Conventions help build strong political parties. Voters who must traipse through a time-consuming system of mass meetings and caucuses to become a delegate to a state convention, there to cast their ballots, are more likely to identify with a party and show partisan loyalty than those who simply visit primary polling booths to vote.
Right. But, in some states that require primaries, the parties hold pre-primary endorsing assemblies. These help preserve the pluses of conventions while still giving the public more voice in the nominations process.
That is the point, isn't it? To give the public more voice?
Tuesday: Let governors run again.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB