National Primary Day?

[RU OX Alum]

I oppose this. It would give too much power to the parties.

[AGDee]

I would support this.

RU OX Alum: Why do you feel it would give power to the parties? I thought it would do exactly the opposite and put it in the actual voters' hands for a change.

[RU OX Alum]

because then the parties would be able to squeeze out third parties even easier than they are now

some Central Committee types will be basically circumventing the plurality (and therefore founding intent) of american politics

[AGDee]

I would envision it differently.. with all the parties being welcome to be part of the primaries also.

[RU OX Alum]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I would envision it differently.. with all the parties being welcome to be part of the primaries also.

that's not how it is now

I know we've always (more or less) had a two-party system, but up until relatively recently, the parties kept changing.

That has hasn't happened in a while, and I'm sure there is foul-play involved.

This would give the dem/rep. coalition even more power.

[AGDee]

Well, that's because now, the parties themselves pay for the primaries. Other parties are more than welcome to have multiple nominees and have primaries to narrow it down to one candidate, but they don't choose/(don't have funding?) to do that. I would much rather see a one day primary that other parties could participate in if they chose. I think it would be kind of interesting to see how many voters actually declared themselves as members of the the other parties for primary voting purposes. It *is* up to those other parties to get their nominees together and organized though.

[Blacksocialite]

The more I read about this concept, the more I think it's a good idea.

I believe it would eliminate long primary cycles and allow for more participation of candidates who are 'priced out' of running for office.