The Primary Issue
The issue of how Tennessee should organize our party political primaries has become a topic for the gubernatorial candidates:
Haslam and Wamp have their own reasons for favoring the continuance of the current Tennessee primary system. Bill Haslam likely favors continuing open primaries because he and the candidates he is most likely to support would have a much more difficult time winning in a closed primary, since closed primaries tend to be the purview of the deep base of both parties-conservatives on the Republican Right and liberals on the Democratic Left (it certainly wouldn't be impossible for Haslam to win a closed primary because of his pool of monetary and political resources). Zach Wamp may say he favors continuing open primaries in order to be contrarian and keep from too much agreement with Ramsey when he is fighting to maintain a second place showing in the coming Republican primary for Governor with Ramsey nipping at his heels-Wamp's position also sounds politically popular.
Realistically, Tennessee won't be adopting closed primaries anytime soon, no matter how much some of us favor such a move. Hence, the best we can do is insure that our open primaries are as free and fair as possible.
Labels: Democrats, Elections, Local politics, Republican Party, Tennessee politics
posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 4:28 PM
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