Don't nationalize party elections

In reply to some questions about fixing the problems with the party elections…..

I do not want a standardized national primary nomination process. This is entirely a matter for the political parties. It requires no government involvement. Americans may have lost faith in government but the solution isn’t regulating parties. Perhaps a better solution would be ignoring them. But the fix is likely to be involvement in political parties to make them more effective. The founders didn’t want parties but I think it is just human nature. Parties have power because concentrated votes can make a difference. They were entrenched with our second president and won’t go away. So we need to make them work. This is a societal function in my view, not a governmental one. The party isn’t the government, we aren’t Chinese communists.

There are two problems with nationalization. My greatest apprehension of more regulation is an attack on sovereignty of states.  This attack is continuing to erode an important constitutional check and balance, which is the power of the states that create the federal government. First, I don’t want national anything. States need to be strong. I don’t want a national nomination process at all that ignores them, treating them perhaps as districts. When that happens then local involvement is not required. Second, I think it is just a setup to attack the Electoral College.  The Electoral College is designed to protect liberty. Don’t mess with it. If the parties are standardized then I think the Electoral College will be next. It will be attacked as archaic, undemocratic, unnecessary etc. None of these are true but ignorant attacks must still be rebutted.

I have zero desire to make all the states the same. What is the benefit? I prefer that they are different.  This isn’t corruption, it is variety and diversity. (The good kind of diversity.) Running 50 different campaigns appears to be a decent test of organizational skills required to run the executive and a trail run of people that will assist in the organization.

The parties may pick their candidates however they choose. The voters are not required. A district choice or caucus works. This year Arizona changed the name to preference election to clarify that the election is not a primary. I don’t think the delegates to the convention are even selected yet. We don’t know will go to Ohio to represent the state. Anything in the process viewed as abnormalities must be corrected by members of the party. Complaints from outside are silly. Journalists complaining about a lack of vote in Colorado is as relevant as them trying to give direction to the Camry design team on changes to the length of the vehicle. They don’t care what you think. Why do even bother? If you don’t like it, then don’t buy. It happens to work for they want to accomplish. Nothing wrong or illegal happened in Colorado. The delegates were selected by committee as the party agree to. Each precinct and district made their choice. The best way to fight the power of political parties is to keep it local. Make each delegate matter by forcing the candidates to deal with every single district chairman. 

The process isn't broken so don't fix it.