I thought the last primary cycles was healthy.
Granted, Romney was NOT my man, but he was no Dole or McCain either.
We need to debate early...and hell, I would support the GOP Contenders announcing, and having debates in 40 Holiday Inns across the country over the next two years...before the Primaries.
I don't think the Romney win was "healthy."
In running for a high office, it is necessary to draw distinctions between yourself and the other candidates, but, as the Wicked Witch of the West said, "These things must be done...delicately." It has to be done in a way that allows the followers of the other candidates to rejoin the party under a common banner. After the battles are over, one has to find a way to live with the vanquished. Romney's Primary wins were anything but "delicate." His tactic was simple: Bury any candidate that challenges in the polls under tons of negative campaign ad buys. Lie if necessary. Accept the aid of Gloria Allred if you must. One by one, he picked them off.
In that process of winning by scorched Earth, he won very little support from the vanquished candidates' supporters. He left too many people who said, "I'll stay home before I vote for the bastard who destroyed my favorite with lies!"
There was a reason Reagan had his "Eleventh Commandment." He understood what I just described. You have to win, but how you win matters just as much. If we learned a "healthy" lesson from the '12 Primaries, it's that we can't let people like Romney dominate the field by destroying everybody else.
Romney was the most hard left radical the GOP has ever nominated, a complete disaster who dominated and destroyed two election cycles as revenge against the right, and a traditional America that he had hated his entire life.