BCT Editorial – 12/21/06

This page was last updated on December 21, 2006.

Free agents; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 21, 2006.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“As the last election showed, the party that loses the center gets tossed at the polls.”

[RWC] This sentence appears to imply Republicans held the mythical “center” before the election, but how can this be? After all, were we not told on a regular basis that Republicans and people who voted for Republicans were right wing extremists?

“The reason for this is that these centrists are political wanderers. While they may be registered as Democrats or Republicans, they do not march in lockstep with their party’s agenda. They pick and choose among the candidates and the parties before voting.”

[RWC] Rather than repeat myself here on the editorial’s usage and meaning of “centrist,” please read my critique of “Center solution.”

“[P]olitical wanderers?” Translation: They jump on bandwagons because they have no guiding system of principles.

“In a column written shortly after the Nov. 7 general election, Chris Santullo, editorial page editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, argued the results were ‘a huge win for America’s true majority party, one that sadly remains unorganized and underestimated.’”

[RWC] Exactly why should we give a Philadelphia flying @#$% what an alleged “editorial page editor” thinks?

“Santullo called for the formation of a new party, one he called the Citizens Party, to be formed to challenge the political duopoly enjoyed by the Democrats and Republicans.

“Santullo is absolutely right about the need for centrists to make their presence felt in U.S. politics and governance, not just at election time but day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out.

“A major problem is that forming a viable third party is a huge obstacle in terms of money, organization and tradition. Plus, the two major parties control the means to effectuate change. They’re not going to be in any hurry to open themselves up to competition.”

[RWC] This paragraph is actually true and the situation it describes in the last sentence needs to be fixed. For example, requiring more signatures for third party candidates than for Democrat and Republican candidates is wrong.

“However, steps can be taken to give centrists more clout. The best way to do that is to allow independents to vote in open primaries. Right now, they’re shut out of the nominating process in many states, including Pennsylvania.

“Sure, they can vote in primaries by registering with either party, but that unfairly restricts them. When it comes to voting in primaries, they should be free agents.”

[RWC] How does “registering with either party” unfairly restrict so-called independents? To the best of my knowledge, you can change party affiliation as often as you want. If you want to vote in the Democrat primary, register as a Democrat. If next year you want to vote in the Republican primary, change registration.

Of course, it’s possible the Times believes independents should be allowed to pick and choose among both Democrat and Republican candidates in the same primary. For example, vote in the Democrat primary for senator and the Republican primary for governor.

“It’s the right and fair thing to do.”

[RWC] In summary, the Times wants to reward people with no system of guiding principles by allowing them to crash the primaries of political parties.

One theme is the little guy centrists need a voice, though they already have one. Let’s look at another scenario. What about Democrats in a largely Republican district? In the Times proposal, a group of evil Republicans could register as independents and vote in the Democrat primary to make sure no real Democrat makes it to the general election. Of course, that could be done today, but the Republicans would have to register as Democrats.

As a reminder, during the 2004 primary season, Transportation Communications International Union management sent union members a letter encouraging Democrat members to switch temporarily their party registration so they could vote in the Republican primary for incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter in order to defeat Rep. Pat Toomey. Union management wanted to make sure that if a Democrat didn’t win the Senate seat in the general election, the liberal Sen. Specter would. Do we want to make this process easier by allowing anyone to vote in any primary regardless of their party registration?