Why pay for primary elections if they're foregone conclusions?

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Gov. Tom Corbett is endorsing his favorite Republican candidates for the April 24 primary election, including candidates for United States Senator (to oppose incumbent Sen. Bob Casey) and auditor general, the office he once held; no incumbent is running in that race.
That's fine.
The Republican State Committee is also endorsing its preferred candidates.
That's not so fine.
When Corbett endorses a candidate, he is exercising his rights as a citizen.
If the Republican State Committee simply says, as a group, "We like this candidate best," that also is fine.
But if the Republican State Committee turns an endorsement into a full-fledged campaign, giving the endorsed candidate access to party-compiled lists of voters and donors, supplying direct or indirect staff help and advice, that raises a question:
Why should taxpayers shell out millions of dollars for primary elections?
The purpose of primaries, after all, is to permit the political parties to get the voters to nominate a candidate.
But if the state committees, Republican or Democrat, are going to put so much muscle behind "endorsed" candidates that the result of the primary election is a foregone conclusion, why do it?
There is an answer to the "why do it" question, of course. Political party leaders like to have primary elections in which their "endorsed" candidates face little or no opposition because those elections provide platforms for getting voters to recognize the names and faces of the leading candidates, preparatory to the elections in November, the ones that really do count.
That's nice, isn't it?
But it's also expensive.
Voters do not exist to please political parties. It's actually the other way around. Political parties exist to persuade voters - with their own money and efforts, not with taxpayer-funded primary elections.
On the local level, primary elections make sense. We know the aspirants for school director, district attorney, council member, etc. Or we know their family, their employer, their prior service, etc.
On the state level, as we previously said, we have no problem with endorsements, be they by a governor or by a state committee.
But when "endorsements" go beyond speech, to the extent of virtually dictating the outcome of primary elections ... well, then, there is no such thing as an "open" primary, and if any election is not open it is de facto rigged, and if elections are rigged, why hold them?
In recent years, voters have had to push the Pennsylvania Legislature back into line, over issues such as unconstitutional pay increases.
This year, voters ought to push political party leaders into the recognition that, while expressed opinions about candidates are all well and good, shoving those same candidates down voters' throats by tilting the playing field is unacceptable.
Either have open primaries, or no primaries, and end the pretense of democracy by choosing candidates via caucuses.
- Denny Bonavita