The Ronmother: Hubby Preferred Closed Primaries

Don’t roll your eyes, but my husband was quoted in a story in the CDA Press by Keith Erickson, on December 17, 1996. He gave his reasons why he supported a resolution that stipulated that voters must register by party before voting in a Primary Election. Since Ron ran a number of campaigns in his day, he felt that candidates have to spend far too much money on elections because thousands of dollars are wasted soliciting votes from opposing party members. Requiring party registration would allow both Democrats and Republicans to run a more focused campaign by better targeting the electorate. Independent candidates can’t run in the primary, so independents must choose between the two major parties anyway. Having party registration would be an incentive for less mischief. Primary elections are intended to give each party a chance to promote their strongest candidate. Sounds fair to me.

Alice Rankin

DFO: Indeed, there’d be less mischief. On the other hand, it’d be fun to know that Thom George, Dan of the County and Mike Kennedy occasionally had to hold their noses and claim to be Republicans to vote in primaries where the Demos don’t have contested races.