Michael Atherton said:
"There is no caucus system in California that allows the individual fringe to exert a dominate influence on city and state elections."
I'm inclined to respond just that the apparent desire to actively suppress party influence upon elections is so ..., well ..., dictatorial.
However,there is a nub of an idea here. It's the matter of how influential are parties to be upon elections. Personally, I favor heavy involvement by ALL political parties in ALL elections. It is appropriate to insist that party nominees be selected by primaries among party members. That's just to ensure that the parties are under control by rank-an-file and not by leaders who try to make themselves old-time political bosses picking candidates in back rooms. The parties are the life-blood of elections.
They are the element that adds some basic identity to candidates rather than leave the decisions completely up to an uninformed electorate that makes decisions on god-only knows what. (I always like the character in the West Wing who periodically rails against "the people.")
And, while I just bad-mouthed old-time political bosses, I'd also argue that we did better under that system than we do now under
a system where every candidate runs a personal campaign and tries to assume the mantel of Democratic, Republican, Green, or anything
else. The candidates, as individuals, I'm not sure in many cases if they believe in anything beyond their own continued election to office. The parties, all of them, wind up as a lobbying influence rather than a control on them. I'm in favor of moving the affect of parties a little more off just being a big lobby toward exerting more control.
Steve Cross Prospect Park
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