Caucus versus Standard System Primaries
It appears that President Obama will be a less ideological style leader than we have had in the immediate past. It seems to be conventional wisdom that he managed this major unexpected victory because he focused great energy on winning the “caucus states”.
For at least the last 16 years America has had a president that a large portion of the population detested. This very strong partisan driven feeling is, in my judgment, very unhealthy for our nation and, because of the power of our nation, to the whole world.
It appears to me that it is imperative that we find candidates for the office of president, and perhaps all national offices, who will lead us from the middle rather than from the political fringe, left or right.
Perhaps this change might be facilitated if we were to modify our manner of selecting nominees in the primary election process. If a more centrist candidate is nominated by both parties s/he will build from the center out, both to the left and right, thus leaving the most ideological factions of our society wrestling with one another out of the power picture.
I once had a professor inform me that in politics the views of the population might better be understood if we were to think of it as a horse shoe distribution rather than a bell curve distribution. That is to say that the two ends of the spectrum of views more closely resemble one another than they do the center.
The caucus system is a hodgepodge as it exists today but perhaps it could be improved in such a way that our nominees will be inclined to seek the middle in the primaries rather than seeking the fringe and then trying to gain a majority of the center during the final campaign.
What do you think?
It appears that President Obama will be a less ideological style leader than we have had in the immediate past. It seems to be conventional wisdom that he managed this major unexpected victory because he focused great energy on winning the “caucus states”.
For at least the last 16 years America has had a president that a large portion of the population detested. This very strong partisan driven feeling is, in my judgment, very unhealthy for our nation and, because of the power of our nation, to the whole world.
It appears to me that it is imperative that we find candidates for the office of president, and perhaps all national offices, who will lead us from the middle rather than from the political fringe, left or right.
Perhaps this change might be facilitated if we were to modify our manner of selecting nominees in the primary election process. If a more centrist candidate is nominated by both parties s/he will build from the center out, both to the left and right, thus leaving the most ideological factions of our society wrestling with one another out of the power picture.
I once had a professor inform me that in politics the views of the population might better be understood if we were to think of it as a horse shoe distribution rather than a bell curve distribution. That is to say that the two ends of the spectrum of views more closely resemble one another than they do the center.
The caucus system is a hodgepodge as it exists today but perhaps it could be improved in such a way that our nominees will be inclined to seek the middle in the primaries rather than seeking the fringe and then trying to gain a majority of the center during the final campaign.
What do you think?
