A phrase that’s a red flag

[iPhone blogging here, as I sit around waiting for a school function to start, so please excuse typos.]

While driving this morning and listening to KSFO, the Bay Area’s only conservative radio station, I heard an ad for the Open Primaries initiative that’s on the ballot (either Prop. 14 or 15). I’m deeply opposed to Open Primaries, since they kill any semblance of a two party system.

In Marin, for example, where about 75% of registered voters are Dems, it means there would never again be a Republican on the Fall ballot. You might as well have a sign saying “no Republicans need apply.”. The same closed door would appear in heavily Republican districts.

Now, one could say that, if a District us so skewed anyway, there’s no way someone from the opposite party could ever win, so why go through the charade of a two party election? I’ll tell you why — the marketplace of ideas.

Even if the candidate for the minority party can’t win, he or she still has a platform that allows the voter to hear the minority ideas. Shut the minority party out of elections, and you’ve essentially closed the door on any debate or dissenting voices in the realm of ideas.

As for my post title, the dead giveaway in the advertisement that this proposition is a very bad idea was the announcer’s almost panicky claim that voting against this Prop would empower “special interests.”. If there’s one thing I’ve learned watching elections over the years, that phrase is code for any groups or individuals who oppose statism. In other words, “vote against special interests,” is the same as “vote for big government.”. This is not to validate the virtue of all the groups Progressives characterize as special interest groups. I know that I disagree with the goals of some or even many of them. It’s just to say that this maligned group often stands as a bulwark against the Progressive agenda.