Secondary Primary Post

As it turns out, I've got a few more things to say about the primary process. So here goes:

Brad Plumer thinks it'd be cool to implement Single Transferable Voting. I agree from a candidate selection perspective -- Brad has a few arguments to this effect -- and also from a fun perspective. Show me the Deaniac who won't feel raw pleasure in ranking Dean over Clark over Edwards over Kerry over Sharpton over Lieberman! Political junkies will enjoy having data about whom Hillary voters considered their second choice, and reading all the ranked endorsements that'll come out. The only disadvantage of STV is that it takes a little while to explain. But it's all fun fun fun after that.

Of course, the joy of STV can only happen in primaries and not in caucuses*, which raises** the question of what to do with the caucuses. I used to be strongly anti-caucus for electability reasons -- I'd like to make the primaries as general-election-like as possible, so as to confer any structural advantages on the candidate who had those advantages in the general election. But in researching the previous post, I read something that brought up the potential advantages of caucusing -- it helps you identify enthusiastic Democrats who really like a candidate, have an upbeat face-to-face chat with them, and bring them into the party structure as volunteers or contributors. So now I'm only mildly anti-caucus.

Unlike Brad, I think it's essential that the people and not the party bosses make the decisions. One of my complaints about the current system is that it allows a candidate to get a big boost out of doing favors for local politicians who then use their clout to help that candidate, rather than by being good or even electable. This is one of the reasons I like having a bunch of states go at the beginning instead of just a few -- you can't do special favors for the whole country. A boss-run system would make the current problem bigger.

*[Update:] Hmm, maybe you could use STV in caucuses. It'd be weird though.

**Please don't cause pain to philosophers -- use 'raises' in this context, not 'begs.'

--Neil the Ethical Werewolf