#90 Down for the Count

Recently the Republican Party filed suit against the State of Washington to prevent the new state “top two” primary system from going into effect. The Democrats, in a rare act of bi-partisanship, filed a sympathy brief, or whatever it’s called. In the political chicken battle of who would sue first and get the most possible public scorn, the Republicans blinked first. As an independent―or what Rush Limbaugh would call “spineless” because my thoughts don’t always run in lockstep with his―I think it’s ironic that the party who is always shouting the loudest about our democracy being taken over by trial lawyers and activist judges should be the one that keeps filing suits in our state about things having to do with elections. Um, do you want the courts to settle disputes or not?
Now don’t get me wrong here. I think it was a travesty that so many dead felons managed to vote in the last gubernatorial election, which, by the way, was also a general election. Although I’ve always believed in extending the franchise as much as possible, I do think being able to breathe should be a prerequisite to being allowed to express your opinion at the polls. And as far as why the live felons voted illegally, I mean, come on, they’re felons for gosh sake. They like to break the law and mess with the powers that be. Do you think they think that voting illegally is gonna blow their probation or something? But seriously, if you were an ex-felon, would you be likely to vote, even illegally, for the ex-attorney general that sent you up the river in the first place? If I was the opposition I’d be thinking, hell, I only got as close as I did because the felons were on my side. And look at the other results that came out of the totals from the same ballots: state and national offices that went overwhelmingly Democrat; Kerry, and Murray and all the state legislative offices, it really does kinda indicate that something unusual must have got Rossi as close as he ended up getting.
So anyhow, the “top two” primary being sued against is a result of our old primary being decided unconstitutional. Both big political parties were involved in that as well, it’s a long story, and this isn’t the place for it. It forced us to have a party declaration sort of primary this last year and nobody liked that either. So the legislature put in Plan B, which is that all the candidates—red, blue, pink and purple—appear on the same primary ballot and the two candidates with the top vote count get to go on to the regular election. On the surface, it seems pretty fair, but in reality, if someone from a minority party, like say, Republicans in King County, wants to get to the general election, it won’t happen. That also means that big chunks of outside money can’t be brought in to bolster them in the last few weeks before the general election either. Which means that last minute dirty tricks campaigns, which have succeeded in placing dark horses through the finish line more than once, will no longer be possible. Cause the dark horse will have already been put out to pasture back in the primary. And that’s bad for politics. And if it’s bad for politics it must be bad for the country, right?
America, ya gotta love it.