ENDING PRIMARIES?
Matthew Yglesias writes, with tongue presumably at least partly in cheek,
What with all this weird insinuating from the non-Dean candidates last night that Gore was trying to somehow illegitimately subvert the electoral process, I think I should come out and say that I really pretty strongly feel that the system of nominating candidates by means of primary elections should be subverted. Party bosses are exactly who should be choosing nominees, not the yahoo voters of New Hampshire who, as I can personally attest based on my extensive door-to-door campaigning efforts for the late Shaheen campaign, have a proclivity for owning some very mean dogs.
There’s something to be said for the primary proces, although not necessarily the one we have now. Tiny, unrepresentative states have way too much power right now. One wonders who the party bosses would have selected, though. Likely not Dean. Kerry, perhaps? I’m not sure that would be any more palatable for the general election. Plus, minus a primary season, the incument would have a huge advantage in that the challenger would only have a couple months from convention to election to achieve plausibility.
Not sure what to do about the dog problem, though.
