Commentary: Democracy can be messy.
Totalitarians like Vladimir Putin mock our imperfections, and with good reason.
Do you realize that only 20 percent of voters nationally decide on which presidential candidates get nominated?
State-by-state primary elections and caucuses often limit the total number of potential voters instead of promoting a wider, more inclusive approach.
The political conventions only add to the problem.
Governor John Kasich might actually have been the most viable presidential candidate for the Republicans, but it didn’t work out that way.
Senator Bernie Sanders probably would have won a head-on matchup in a general election format against Hillary Clinton. At least that’s what the national polls kept telling us.
Streamline and Simplify
In place of the contrived restrictions of state primaries and caucuses, and the low voter turnouts that often characterize them, why not streamline or simplify the process by instituting a single national primary election day?
Maybe this was the intent of Super Tuesday, but it hasn’t turned out that way.
I’m talking about a straight-forward, across-the-board day for all 50 states, along with U.S. territories like Puerto Rico or American Samoa, to hold a single primary election using a single national ballot for Democrats and Republicans, as well as Libertarians and other lesser parties, to vote on simultaneously.
There would be no Electoral College associated with a national presidential primary election day, thus avoiding any constitutional issues or amendments.
Candidates garnering more than 50 percent of the national vote would become the party nominee. In cases where pluralities, not majorities, result, delegates would make a final decision at their party’s national convention.
This new model would work more efficiently for Republicans and Democrats alike. It would also work for the lesser parties
It seems we still need the party conventions, mainly to express party positions on key issues. The platform thus becomes more high-profile, less likely to be subordinated by personalities running for president.
Certainly, convention delegates could still be selected at the state level through their own state party conventions, as is the case now.
For the lesser parties still emerging into the mainstream electorate, we won’t see any of their presidential candidates winning more than half of a national party vote any time soon. But at least this new approach would maintain their position on the final election ballot and likely give them more national exposure via the national primary election day.
Embracing Change for the Better
Think of how much more democratic the presidential primaries would become.
A single, national primary election day would likely disintermediate, or cut out, the party bosses, special interests, political action groups and other forces impeding a more grass-roots determination about which candidates ultimately end up on the General Election ballots every four years in November.
Think about the clarity we would all gain without the clutter of multiple primary and caucus elections.
Despite the fact the primaries were introduced to allow candidates to stagger, or spread out, their use of funding, manpower and other resources, they have turned into huge waste generators.
Candidates waste billions of dollars every four years on direct mail, telemarketing, social media, and of course, mainly TV and radio advertising.
Overlay the continuous drone of news media, often with pronounced liberal or conservative leanings, and we, the voters, get to wade through a 5-month barrage of paid and unpaid media on a state-by-state basis.
A single national primary day might also reduce the polarization poisoning the debate for the presidency, the same sense of inertia or gridlock that has governed Capitol Hill throughout the Obama administration.
It’s the same failure of the political partisans who refuse to collaborate and work together, only to get nothing productive done at the end of any given legislative day or session.
It’s this failure that makes me think, maybe, just maybe, the Parliamentary system of governing, not our Democratic-Republic model, is a better fit for the realities of today’s political world.
Adapt and Survive
Looking at the 2016 primary and caucus schedule, the term “Swiss cheese” comes to mind. There are 13 states and territories that don’t even participate in the primary process.
So there’s another reason that we find, time and again, that only one-fifth of all American voters actually determine the presidential nominees for their parties.
Simply hold a single primary election, make it the same date that Super Tuesday now occupies, and blow up conventional thinking, no pun intended.
Companies like IBM have clearly demonstrated how the failure to adapt to a changing world can spell the difference between survival and extinction. The same precept holds for governments and societies.
We have reached a point as a nation where reinvention will help us improve our political and electoral system. It’s time to see beyond the status-quo, because without improving the systemic flaws of our current model, our Democratic Republic’s survival timeline may well be shrinking.
Big changes start with simple steps.
Like the idea of term limits or banning special interests from Capitol Hill, a single national presidential primary election day would help restore national unity.
Richard Kadzis is a resident of Las Cruces. He is a former New England correspondent for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and has extensive experience covering and advising candidates for national and statewide offices.