Spurred by the embarrassing displays of ineptitude by fringe Conservatives in the 2012 elections, Karl Rove’s Super PAC, American Crossroads, unveiled a new initiative dubbed the Conservative Victory Project in early February.
Its purpose is to ensure that “unelectable” conservatives don’t make it past the primary, allowing only electable candidates to advance to the general election.
Citing the likes of Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, Rove argues that conservatives will continue to lose winnable elections if voters in the primaries keep selecting uncontrollable and occasionally just bizzare candidates.
Primaries attract far fewer voters than general elections, and those who do show up tend to be the most extreme and energized members of their party.
Lately these ideological voters have been particularly right wing. When candidates such as Akin, who claimed women couldn’t get pregnant by “legitimate” rape, win primaries for otherwise winnable general elections, it’s bad for Republicans, as it gives Democrats an opening to crush them.
Indeed, Claire McCaskill, the Democratic incumbent in Missouri, hoped Akin would be her opponent. She knew he was likely the only Republican candidate that she could beat. Putting forth candidates like Akin guarantees that Republicans will lose elections than they would if they presented candidates more ideologically suited to individual districts.
Especially since the rise of the Tea Party, far-right candidates have been mounting successful primary challenges against Republican favorites.
Sometimes this works out for the party, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Mourdock defeated respected incumbent Dick Lugar in the Republican primary in Indiana in the 2012 election primary, following his notorious comments suggesting that children conceived of rape are a gift from God. Mourdock was subsequently steamrolled by Democratic challenger Joe Donnelly.
On the other hand, dark horse candidate Ted Cruz defeated favorite David Dewhurst in a primary runoff election for Texas’s open Senate seat in 2012; he then went on to win by double digits, as a Republican in a solidly red state.
Cruz is now well on his way to becoming the most right-wing senator in Congress. Instead of laying low, learning the ropes, and making friends, as freshman Senators are wont to do, Cruz is establishing himself as a firebrand.
He was one of only three Senators to oppose the unquestionably qualified John Kerry’s nomination for Secretary of State, joining the likes of Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who has compared the EPA to the Gestapo.
All too often, primaries end up weeding out the best candidates for the job in favor of those who strictly adhere to extreme interpretations of party orthodoxy.
A better electoral system is already in place in states such as Washington, California and Louisiana, where every candidate for a given office is on the same ballot in the primary election, then the top two candidates progress to a runoff for the general election.
Non-partisan blanket primaries ensure that more people have a say in who the final two candidates are, and that the eventual winner garners a majority of the vote rather than a simple plurality.
With this model, in areas of one-party control, there is the distinct possibility that the general election is between two candidates of the same party. In that case, voters have a real choice—rather than the frontrunner of the dominant party crushing the symbolic candidate of the weaker party, there is a real intra-party ideological debate to determine the outcome.
Most of the elections I mentioned before may have had different results under a blanket primary system.
Assuming both voter turnout and the proportion of the vote going to each candidate remained the same under a blanket primary, David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz would have faced each other in the general election, and Dewhurst, pulling every Democratic vote, would have won.
Given that Joe Donnelly ran unopposed in his primary, Indiana’s projected alternative results are less clear.
However, the general election would have probably been between Mourdock and Lugar, with Lugar pulling the Democratic votes and eventually taking the election.
Here in Maine, Independent Eliot Cutler would currently be governor if we had a blanket primary system. As we are constantly reminded, 61 percent of voting Mainers voted against Governor LePage. In a LePage-Cutler election, Cutler certainly would have won.
I doubt Karl Rove would endorse a system that favors moderate candidates. What we do have in common is the idea that candidates should have to prove they are electable outside of their ideological base.
Ousting quality senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, as the far right will try to do in 2014, just hurts the credibility of the Republican Party and hinders the Senate’s ability to function.
Both sides are putting forth candidates who do not represent the interests of the majority of their constituents. Blanket primaries would help eliminate unelectable candidates and give us two viable choices for elected office.
David Steury is a member of the Class of 2015.