THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602170004
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
``Virginia Republicans lack unity'' (editorial, Feb. 13) is well off the mark. Why should the Republican Party be forced to allow Democrats, including Mark Warner, Don Beyer and Owen Pickett, to participate in nominating a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate?
Virginia's statutory requirement that those openly hostile to the objectives of a political party be permitted to vote in that party's primary frustrates the very purpose of a political party. It makes participation in a party virtually meaningless.
I believe, as Woodrow Wilson did, that the two major parties should offer competing visions and programs so that the voters can have an effective voice in choosing the direction of the country. That can't happen when incumbents choose, as John Warner has done, to disregard their party's principles and programs.
Warner, who came to power only because Republicans all across Virginia got him there, is the embodiment of what is wrong with modern politics. It is a politics of personality and incumbency advantage.
Voters overwhelmingly want parties to stand for more than simply acquiring power. They are frustrated because politicians fail, as Warner has done, to deliver on their promises while brazenly insisting that only entrenched incumbents can bring the bacon back to their constituents.
Political scientists and commentators complain about the lack of coherence and accountability in politics. They are in agreement that coherence and accountability are impossible without strong political parties.
How can a political party become strong and effective unless it is able to prevent voters utterly opposed to its principles form participating in its processes, particularly it nominating process? How can it hold its nominees accountable when members of other parties have an equal chance to participate in its nominating process?
The issue of open primaries goes far beyond John Warner. It involves the very integrity of political parties. As the Supreme Court has said repeatedly, ``the freedom to join together in furtherance of common political beliefs necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association.''
Centrist politicians have given us a $5 trillion national debt and an overblown government that saps the motive energy of Americans. Only a strong, disciplined party will ever reverse that trend. Such a party is our only hope of resisting the political pressure to continue bribing voters with promises of government favors we can't pay for, leaving future generations with unbearable debt.
PATRICK M. McSWEENEY
Chairman
Republican Party of Virginia
Richmond, Feb. 13, 1996 by CNB