Archive: Opinions

EditorialThe country is torn in half.  Elections are so close that the Supreme Court had to get involved in a recent presidential election.  Even closer to home, our new Lansing Town Supervisor won by only 23 votes, and the library vote was nearly 50/50.  My sense is that we are seeing this effect at the local level because it has gotten so out of hand on the national level, a kind of trickle-down politics.

Most people don't have extreme ideas.  That's why the few who are left are called extreme.  That is also why our system of primary elections has gone so crazy on the national level.  Because presidential candidates have to please the extremists before they can run in an election that moderates vote in.  And when moderates do get to vote, the only choices are extreme.  I don't see how that serves the country, its citizens, or anyone.

That is not to say that voters shouldn't be presented with choices.  I believe strongly in our system of democracy.  But nowhere in the constitution does it say that there have to be Republicans and Democrats.  We've become accustomed to the two party system, and are wary of third party candidates because they are weird -- why can't they be a Republican or a Democrat if they want to be really serious contenders?

Yet for the first 125 or so years of our history there were no Republicans.  And for another 50 or so years after that we had a three party system with the Democrats, Whigs, and Republicans.  And let's not forget the Federalist Party, which existed from 1789 to 1820.  Republicans didn't become important until the Whigs dissolved their party.  And the Democratic Party was originally called the Democratic-Republican Party, which existed in that form from 1792 to 1824.  Those Whigs may not have done us any favors when they left us with only two major parties, because we now find ourselves in a split country.

If candidates didn't have to pander to the extremes in the primaries we would probably have more moderate candidates running in the general election, leaders who represent a vastly larger majority of Americans than our current candidates do.  More people would feel that the country is on course, and a whopping half of us wouldn't feel disenfranchised every four years.

How to do it?  Abolish primaries and let all of them run in the general election.  That way moderates who don't have a chance in the current system would be on equal footing with extremists.  And the best man or woman would win.  Why not?  Choice is supposed to be good in a democracy, isn't it?

Anyway, that's how I would do it if I were the benevolent dictator of our country.  Then again, come to think of it, if there were a benevolent dictator I guess we wouldn't have elections!

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