What is happening to this country?

[33girl]

Originally Posted by MysticCat

It's not just about communication, though. To get mundane about it, ballot management and vetting are issues.

The current system, at least in most states, is that parties nominate candidates, which requires those candidates to undergo a primary or caucus system to guage the degree of support they have. Each recognized party then puts up its candidates, who presumably have already shown some degree of support in the electorate. Typically, this results in a manageable number of candidates on the ballot.

It's not just POTUS when we're talking about with parties -- it's senators, representatives, governors, state legislators, other state executive and judicial officials possibly, potentially all the way down to town council and school board. Do away with parties and what happens when you have 30+ people running for POTUS, plus 20 more for governor (there was the California recall ballot with 135 candidates, but that was the only office on the ballot), 13 for senator, 22 for representative . . . ? Both from the standpoint of a manageable ballot and from the standpoint of trying to keep straight the positions of all the scores of candidates, it has the real potential for an electoral nightmare.

Parties have their problems, to be sure, but doing away with them wouldn't solve anything.

You could still have a primary, in which only the top 5 or 10 vote getters are placed on the national ballots. I don't see how that's any different than the party primaries where everyone and their brother is running.

I just honestly think it's gotten to the point where parties do more harm than good and are pushing good people away from politics.