Dear Dan,

I have to take exception to your tongue-in-cheek editorial of Feb. 8th in which you propose that in the primaries we should "Let Republicans, not Democrats, vote in the Democratic primary, and Democrats, not Republicans, vote for Republicans".

Rather than resulting in more centrist candidates for the general election as you suggest, this process would more likely lead to the worst possible candidates. If they were smart (albeit a questionable premise to begin with), the Republicans would vote for the worst democratic candidates in hopes that their candidates would look better by comparison and thus be elected. Likewise, the Democrats would do the same.

The result: we would have the worst possible candidates of both parties from which to choose. Granted, the present primary system does not always lead to a better outcome as evidenced by recent elections, but hopefully at least, there are some viable candidates that rise to the top and are elected.

Keep up the always stimulating, thought-provoking and sometimes humorous editorials. ;-)

Best regards,

Richard Durst
Koefering, Germany
v15i6