Kill the Primary System

America has always been a place of strong opinions, and strong differences. There has always been heated debate on the floor of the Congress. But it used to be that people could disagree upon the issues without being unpatriotic. It used to be that having an idea for a program didn't draw comparisons to Nazis. It used to be that politics was civil, despite ideology.

The last few decades have seen a steady erosion of the civility in politics, to the point where now we find ourselves locked in perpetual campaigns, every sound bite dissected, and politicians publicly saying that a bill would mean the end of the world.

What caused our political system to fall to the point where you see more civility in kindergarten?

In short, the primary system is the root of a great many of our country's political woes.

The primary system forces politicians to pander to the fringe of their parties, because only the fringe can be bothered to vote in these minor ballots that decide so much. And before you start, this is a bipartisan problem. Democrats are beholden to the far left crazies just as much as Republicans are beholden to far right crazies. For the fringe, the system works great. It is everyone in between who gets the shaft.

The essence of politics is compromise. You wheel and deal, and you take two opposing viewpoints and try to find something in between, that both parties can live with. Hell, the reason we have a House of Representatives and a Senate is because of a compromise! Compromise makes laws stronger.

But in the primary system, politicians who reach across the aisle to compromise are vilified by the extremes, so anyone who actually tries to get things done, rather than put things in a deadlock, finds themselves with the fringe booting them out of office in a primary. Even when the majority of Americans favor compromise on an issue, politicians are too scared of losing their job at the hands of the nuts in their own party to do the people's business.

And this is not limited to Congressmen and Senators. Even Presidential candidates must play to the crazies of their own party through the primary process, before moving to the middle for a general, opening them up to well deserved accusations of hypocrisy.

The only solution I can see is to kill the primary system. Open up the ballots in the elections to whoever can fulfill the requirements, and let the people pick from the full spectrum of the candidates out there. Sure, there may be some craziness as you see more run-off elections, but I see that as a good thing. Instead of having primaries for each party, where the extremes choose the candidates everyone is stuck with in the general, open up the general to everyone, and have a run-off between the two with the highest vote counts. The eventual winner would be a compromise, of course, but why is that bad?

Compromise candidates may lead to more compromise in legislation. And that is a good thing.