30th June 2016, 5:22 AM
Your resentment of independents has already been noted. I skew on the side of states that have "open" primaries myself. Letting everyone have a say leads to a healthier democracy, that makes sense to me.
We do have governor's races with more than one candidate, but I'm not sure what you mean by "competitive". Are you seriously saying "all real campaigns need TV ads to succeed. Oh, you don't have TV ads? Ah, then you must not have serious campaigns." Consider something ABF. How much longer are TV ads even going to be a viable way of reaching the public? Full disclosure, I haven't seen a televised ad in over a year. I have Netflix and ad-free Hulu. When I say I haven't seen any political ads, I'm actually talking about my past experience in Oklahoma, not my current experience.
In Oklahoma, when I want to get information on candidates, including presidential, I watch the news, or more commonly the comedy news (where more people get their news than... probably should). But, in reality, I tend to get much MORE information outside of TV, on the internet, where I can also watch the Daily Show.
Incidentally, the 538 results only demonstrate that the right wing in Oklahoma are pretty heavily right wing and skew towards exactly the sort of people Trump is trying to appeal to. It doesn't say a thing about the liberal side of OK or even the independents. I should tell you a peculiar quirk of the Oklahoma primary rules. They are "closed with opt-in". That means a party can indicate that they WANT to allow independents to vote in their primaries. It was a big to-do that showed how selfish that system is. Anyway, the democratic party that you said shouldn't let non-party citizens vote in it's primaries let non-party citizens vote in the Oklahoma primaries. It's thought that this is the reason Sanders won so handily in Oklahoma (that and he had a pretty big rally in Tulsa that day). The Republicans on the other hand wanted their's to be closed off, so while I got to help pick who would represent the democrats, I couldn't weigh in on who should represent the republicans. I have to wonder if Trump would have won if the independents were allowed to vote in that one.
This is EXACTLY why "closed primaries" are a bad idea. You can talk about how the parties should be allowed to exclude outsiders all you want, but there are REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES for that sort of policy! Freedom of an organization to run themselves as they so choose is one thing, but when those parties get to decide exactly who we vote on, it's nice for voters to be able to have more of a say in who they actually get to choose from on election day. Before you start in on how every good citizen needs to join a party or whatever, do you honestly think having everyone sign themselves away to a party, with ZERO independents left over to maybe point out how neither party is really working for them, is a good idea? Having independents is a HEALTHY THING!
We do have governor's races with more than one candidate, but I'm not sure what you mean by "competitive". Are you seriously saying "all real campaigns need TV ads to succeed. Oh, you don't have TV ads? Ah, then you must not have serious campaigns." Consider something ABF. How much longer are TV ads even going to be a viable way of reaching the public? Full disclosure, I haven't seen a televised ad in over a year. I have Netflix and ad-free Hulu. When I say I haven't seen any political ads, I'm actually talking about my past experience in Oklahoma, not my current experience.
In Oklahoma, when I want to get information on candidates, including presidential, I watch the news, or more commonly the comedy news (where more people get their news than... probably should). But, in reality, I tend to get much MORE information outside of TV, on the internet, where I can also watch the Daily Show.
Incidentally, the 538 results only demonstrate that the right wing in Oklahoma are pretty heavily right wing and skew towards exactly the sort of people Trump is trying to appeal to. It doesn't say a thing about the liberal side of OK or even the independents. I should tell you a peculiar quirk of the Oklahoma primary rules. They are "closed with opt-in". That means a party can indicate that they WANT to allow independents to vote in their primaries. It was a big to-do that showed how selfish that system is. Anyway, the democratic party that you said shouldn't let non-party citizens vote in it's primaries let non-party citizens vote in the Oklahoma primaries. It's thought that this is the reason Sanders won so handily in Oklahoma (that and he had a pretty big rally in Tulsa that day). The Republicans on the other hand wanted their's to be closed off, so while I got to help pick who would represent the democrats, I couldn't weigh in on who should represent the republicans. I have to wonder if Trump would have won if the independents were allowed to vote in that one.
This is EXACTLY why "closed primaries" are a bad idea. You can talk about how the parties should be allowed to exclude outsiders all you want, but there are REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES for that sort of policy! Freedom of an organization to run themselves as they so choose is one thing, but when those parties get to decide exactly who we vote on, it's nice for voters to be able to have more of a say in who they actually get to choose from on election day. Before you start in on how every good citizen needs to join a party or whatever, do you honestly think having everyone sign themselves away to a party, with ZERO independents left over to maybe point out how neither party is really working for them, is a good idea? Having independents is a HEALTHY THING!
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)