Should we end the primary system for nominating presidential candidates?

Question

In the past, the Democratic and Republican conventions actually chose the candidates for each party. People rejected the "smoke-filled back room deals" which chose candidates for most of our history. By choosing nominees through primaries, it was thought they would open the process to a more democratic ideal.

What it really did, however, was concretize the fringes of each party, giving veto power over nominees to the religous right for the Republicans, and radical/socialists for the Democrats. Since these blocks mobilize large numbers of voters for the primaries, they can choose their candidates, or effectively block candidates who don't follow their line on issues like abortion, gun control, etc.

This has hurt the Dems much more than the Repubs, and explains why weak-kneed candidates from Humphrey to Kerry have met with resounding defeat. Is it time to change?

Well, no one has really addressed the question directly, regarding the primary process. In the past neither delegates to the convention could vote for whichever candidate they chose, now those votes are locked into the primary process.

Some may think Hump, McGov, Carter, Mondale, Duk, Clinton, Gore and Kerry were good candidates. The voters clearly did not. Since 68, Dems have lost 7 of 10 prez elections,

Answer 1

I also think the primary system has just strengthened the two-party system, which is crippling the government. I think by eliminated primaries the voters would get a wider range of candidates and would allow for a system where the VP would be the runner-up (second-highest number of votes) and not a hand-selected partisan.

Answer 2

Political primaries are nothing more than organizational sponsorships. They are a poll among members as to who the organization should sponsor, just the way the Sierra Club and the NRA chooses to sponsor a candidate.

Political party affiliations are meaningless as far as the actual constitutional procedure for elections are concerned.

But yes, I think all political parties should be eliminated, and each candidate be required to stand on their own platform and their own merits.

Answer 3

Why would you want candidates who are only a few degrees apart?

Humphrey, McGovern, and Kerry happened to be right on their respective wars. Nixon won in 1968, but ended up pulling out of Vietnam taking the same deal that was offered to LBJ in 1968. The only way we could have won in Vietnam was to kill most of the Vietnamese. Likewise, if anything, Kerry was too tepid in his criticism of the Iraq War. Now even Republicans in the Senate are beginning to see that it's not primarily al Qaeda we are fighting there but Iraqis who want the right to choose their own future and not have Bush force an oil law on them that will give most of their oil revenue to American corporations.

THE HYDROCARBON LAW BUSH IS PUSHING:
http://professorsmartass.blogspot.com/2007/03/juhasz-whose-oil-is-it-anyway.html

WHAT IRAQIS THINK OF IT:
http://www.handsoffiraqioil.org

What we need is reforms that will give us a true multi-party system, maybe something like they have in Israel, where they have to get coalitions of parties to form a majority government.

And at the very least, we need to reduce the role of money through clean money laws, so we get back to one man one vote instead of one dollar one vote.

It would also be nice if candidates supported our basic constitutional framework of checks and balances, our Bill of Rights, and our historic commitment to human rights, which the current resident of the White House and his supporters don't seem to care for much.

Answer 4

I don't think we need a President. The country should be ran by Congress.

Answer 5

I printed his accomplishments, and as I figured, you in trouble-free terms disregarded them. i think you prefer to look ignorant. the only human beings you're convincing are distinctive ignorant human beings, so who particularly cares?