Imperfect, Perhaps, Yet It Does Deliver Parties Bring Focus Wide Open Campaigns Create A Toxic Mush.

George Washington warned us. James Madison warned us. But did we listen, we Americans? Nope, we formed political factions anyway.

It’s a good thing we did. Political parties have worked well for most of the past two centuries. They allow Americans to unite with others who share their convictions about how government should operate and to team up on behalf of political candidates who will represent those beliefs. That’s fundamental citizen activism.

Abuses? Sure, the party system has produced some. In the last few decades, though, misguided reforms weakened the parties’ role and confused the electorate.

A lot of Washingtonians came away angry from their state’s recent presidential primary and caucuses. They wanted a voice in one party or the other’s presidential nomination, but not if it meant identifying themselves as party members. Recent years’ attempts to popularize the process led them to consider such an attitude logical.

But that’s not what the nomination process is about. Republicans should choose candidates to represent their ideals and Democrats should choose candidates to represent theirs. Alternative parties, if they have enough support, can do the same.

Voters who disdain any party alliance can make their own choice come November when all voters - even those who choose not to participate in party activities - elect a president.

It’s not by chance that the trend toward a wide open nominating process coincided with less substantive and more vitriolic primary campaigns, plus the ever-expanding domination by funding.

It takes big money to buy the television time that allows candidates to bypass impotent parties and appeal directly to individual voters. Mass appeals result in mushy messages, negative and nonspecific.

Back in the late 18th century, the political factions with which Madison and Washington were familiar were mostly coalitions to advance the personal ambitions of individual English noblemen.

Had they envisioned it, the founding fathers might have endorsed a party system that would bring citizen participants together in the deliberative spirit that is essential to self-governance.

Especially if they had foreseen how the weakening of those parties is working to advance the ambitions of individual American noblemen.