Whose Primaries are They?

Just whose primary elections have we been following so closely? If you think they were Republican affairs, think again. Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina all allow crossover voters -- independents and Democrats -- to vote in the Republican primaries. In Florida, only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary. Though Florida isn’t a typical Red state, it will be the first real barometer of Republican voters’ thinking.

There’s a reason no clear leader has emerged from the crowd: so far, only a tiny minority of Republicans have actually voted, and the results do not reflect any Republican consensus. Why? In Michigan, for example, the Kos Kidz were very active pushing hard for Dems to vote in the Republican primary to cause whatever mischief they could manage. We are left to wonder how the crossover voters have skewed the result. Were they decisive or did they just affect at the margins?

According to a Fox News exit poll, 32% of the Michigan Republican primary voters identified themselves as independents or Democrats. Another Fox exit poll showed 20% of the South Carolina Republican primary voters said they were either Democrats or independents. In Michigan, Gov. Romney won with 39%, Sen. McCain was second at 30% and Gov. Huckabee third at 16%. In South Carolina, John McCain won with 33% of the vote, Mike Huckabee had 30% and Fred Thompson had 16%. Given those margins, it’s pretty clear that the Dems and independents controlled the result in both states.

To win the Republican nomination a candidate has to capture the votes of 1191 convention delegates. So far, Romney has 42, McCain has 28 and Huckabee has 35. The total of 105 represents only 9% of the total. On February 5, Super Tuesday, 22 states will vote and 1132 delegates -- 95% of the total needed to capture the nomination -- will be at stake. Between Super Tuesday and the June 3 primaries in Montana, South Dakota and New Mexico, another 1061 delegates will be chosen. In most of those states, only Republicans will be able to vote in the primaries.

By June 4, it’s almost certain that the nominee will be effectively chosen. But there’s a long time -- almost five months – before June 3 goes into the record books, and in that time it’s still anyone’s game.

The value of the early primaries is diminished enormously by the crossover votes. They preclude the determination of a consensus candidate. But they do enable the media to spin an imaginary consensus around the early winners and around the issues the media – not Republican voters -- believe are most important.

Too many people are saying that Sen. McCain’s South Carolina victory shows he has made peace with conservatives on illegal immigration, the single hottest issue for conservatives. But that conclusion is flatly wrong because it’s reached on the basis of a primary in which Democrats and independents controlled the outcome. The Republican Party risks losing in the fall if they accept that erroneous analysis.

If you listen to the media-controlled “Republican” debates -- and to the candidates who are cornered into responding to the issues the media pose in them -- the biggest issues now are the recession and economic relief for sinking industries. In the bizarre Iowa “Des Moines Register” debate, the hyperliberal moderator took the Iraq and illegal immigration issues off the table. She limited the agenda to liberal issues such as global warming.

Any Republican voters who aren’t disgusted with the primary process to date haven’t paid enough attention to it. It’s bad enough that McCain and Huckabee have signed on to the global warming nonsense. But it’s worse that candidates who sign on to liberal positions aren’t taken to task for it.

The Republican Party has allowed its opponents to capture the primary process. If Republicans are going to choose a nominee they can rally around, they have to compel the candidates to take stands on the issues that matter to them most. Unless a candidate does that, he can’t possibly win in November.

Republicans lost the 2006 election by compiling a record that pleased only Democrats and avoiding taking hard positions on what matters most to their base. Republicans will lose the 2008 election if they don’t choose a candidate who is a solid conservative and campaigns on conservative issues and principles.

It’s probably too late to reclaim the television debates from the liberal media. But it’s not too late to reject the Republican contenders that would most please the Democrats. But if we, as conservatives, speak out as actively and forcefully in the primaries as we did last summer on the illegal immigration issue, Republicans could still choose a winner.

We of the conservative media and you -- in the local events when the candidates appear personally -- can demand answers to the questions that matter most to us. Here are a few.

For Sen. McCain: Since your immigration reform bill was defeated last summer, you’ve said that you learned the lesson that border security must come first. Will you agree with conservatives that the borders must be secured -- and the security proved objectively for at least two years -- before there is any more talk of “guest worker programs” or “paths to citizenship”?

For Sen. Thompson: What is the biggest mistake you think President Bush has made and precisely how would you remedy it?

For Gov. Huckabee: You told us that you support the concept of a “cap and trade” system by which carbon emissions would be limited and permits for them bought and sold. First, do you believe that man-made global warming is a crisis demanding government action? Second, how would “cap and trade” work without strangling the American economy?

For Mayor Giuliani: You have said that states and cities should be able to decide on their own gun control measures. Do you believe Americans’ rights secured by the Second Amendment vary in accordance with where they live?

For Gov. Romney: Your approach to helping the automobile industry sounded a lot like a big-government approach to interfere with the free market. How do you reconcile your proposal with the conservative principle of keeping government out of the business of business?

Those are a good start. Ask the questions, demand the answers and talk about them to everyone who will listen. It may be the last chance we have to affect this absurd primary process.

I like Jed Babbin a lot, but he is obscuring the issue a bit by lumping together Democrats and independents. There are a lot of independents who lean conservative and tend to vote Republican. How many Democrats voted in the Republican primaries just to cause mischief is harder to determine...it mattered in Michigan that there was no meaningful race in their own party.

I don't know if SC prevents people from voting in both primaries--if so, Democrats there who care about their own nomination process would have waited to vote next Saturday.

Even if Thompson hasn't officially quit, I don't think he has a chance after his poor showing in SC (a weak third, almost coming in fourth), but he might be able to blunt Huckabee's appeal in the South if he stays in until after Super-Duper Tuesday.

The basic problem is that the only two true conservatives, Hunter and Thompson, flopped as campaigners, so we are left with candidates who are conservative on some issues and liberal on others. Do we make do with half a loaf or get a dangerous leftist who considers conservative views beyond the pale and conservatives as the enemy? That's what we'll have if Hillary or Obama wins in November.

(I'm giving Romney the benefit of the doubt--he sounds conservative now but I have no idea what he actually believes other than that he should be President.)

I am sick to my stomach. The MSM is marketing the Republican nominee(s) they believe can be most easily beaten.

...and to watch this country’s republican voters fall in behind RINOs is a sad testimonial.

Certainly, the current situation has nothing to do with Rush Limbaugh. Even if he did have the “sacred honor” to step out from behind his GEIBM, he would have little impact. Mental giant, courage midget that one. oh, but he “has his reasons”. he he he.

I’m a friend of Fred and have donated to his campaign. I pray for his mother. I lost mine to Alzheimers when I was 35. For God’s sake (no cliche here), he MUST be the nominee or I’m going to have to hold my noze in November... probably move the family into a mountain art communal.

viva FREDTHOMPSON!!!
viva FREEREPUBLIC!!!

Right, the independents should have their own primary

Personally, I don't think the parties should have primaries at all. Or if they do, it's only to decide which cannidate they wish to enter into *the* official primary. Parties are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, and neither are primaries.

Primaries, whehter closed or open, are part of the reason we have the Demopublicans and the Republocrats. Along with the rules of Congres which give the parties all sorts of advantages.

President Washington had it right.

All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and Associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, controul counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities are distructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. They serve to Organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force--to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprizing minority of the Community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public Administration the Mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the Organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modefied by mutual interests. However combinations or Associations of the above description may now & then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, & to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

I have already intimated to you the danger of Parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on Geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, & warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.

This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseperable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human Mind. It exists under different shapes in all Governments, more or less stifled, controuled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence & corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the Administration of the Government and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true--and in Governments of a Monarchical cast patriotism may look with endulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate & assuage it. A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume."

Washington's Farewell Addres, 19 September 1796 (Starting at page 14 for those in Rio Lindo).

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