Smoke Filled Rooms!

We certainly do not lack for democracy in our country these days. In Detroit, for example, we are about to have our fourth mayoral election in the last year. But that itself is a sidebar, an aberration caused by the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal. What is really telling and in fact a weakness in our system is in how political parties selected their candidates. Basically, almost anyone can participate in the way in which Republicans and Democrats select the people who run for office in the name of the party.

The way things are right now, anyone can enter primaries as whatever party they choose. If they wish to seek elective office all they need to do is proclaim themselves a Democrat or Republican and do their level best to entice the public into supporting them rather than appeal to the respective party on the grounds of political philosophy. Further, as is so often the case, almost anyone can vote in the primary or caucus of their choice in order to select candidates for either major party. In short, the parties have increasingly little say in who actually represents them.

What this does more than anything is weaken party identification and, in the end, any real choice we have in who we elect. It leads to what currently are called RINOS: Republicans in name only. One would supposed that DINOS, Democrats in name only, would be rampant in the political world as well. Basically we end up with two parties: Demopublicans and Republicrats, political movements of a hash which leave little save bland taste.

As political parties are essentially private entities, it should follow that they ought to be able to select their own candidates for office. It would create something more akin to what parliamentary systems have, a party discipline wherein you could not run as a Republican or Democrat unless you really stood for what the party did.

What we require is a return to the smoke filled rooms of yesteryear. That would stand a better chance of giving us as the electorate a real choice in who becomes our legislators, congressmen, governors, and presidents. Let the parties choose who represents what they believe in. Then we may actually see a difference in the GOP and the donkeys. Until then, we shall get what we deserve: bad philosophy, and worse politics.