Guest Opinion

Primary is closed for a reason

MY VIEW • Letting nonparty members vote invites sabotage

By Robert M. Eisinger

, Apr 11, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (27 Reader comments)

We now have one more reason to kill the open primary. For the past several years, former Secretary of State Phil Keisling has been extolling the virtues of the open primary.

Despite a plethora of scholarly literature that suggests it is a bad idea, Keisling and others have forged on, arguing that open primaries will elect more centrist politicians who can govern without being beholden to the polarized activists who vote in primaries.

One criticism of the open primary is that it leaves open the possibility of sabatoge. Republicans (and independents) could vote for Democrats, and vice versa.

If there were a weak GOP candidate, for example, and a solid Democratic candidate, the liberal Democrats could vote for the feeble Republican, in the hopes that he or she win. Then in November, the strong Democrat would defeat the impotent Republican.

Advocates of the open primary have no credible response to this criticism, because there is none. Sure enough, Tuesday’s Mississippi Democratic primary is further evidence that the open primary is a bad idea.

Mississippi is an open primary state, and sure enough, exit polls reveal that about 75 percent of the Republicans who voted in the Democratic primary voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

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