Will your candidate be on the Virginia primary ballot? Who cares!
Jeremy Aldrich -- October 24th, 2007
I got an email the other day trying to get me to take part in a ballot access drive for a candidate I like. The thing is, by the time Virginia chooses its favorite candidates to win the party nominations, the nominations will almost certainly be locked up. In 2004, when Virginia voted on Feb. 10 there were still 6 Democratic candidates to choose from (the Republican nomination, obviously, was going to incumbent prez Bush). Ah, the good old days. Back then we were only the 14th state to vote. In 2008, though, by the time our primaries roll around on February 12, we will be the 32nd state to vote, and the winning candidates will already have won enough delegates to win the nomination. So what’s the point of putting a candidate on the ballot in Virginia who will either already have won or have dropped out by the time we vote?
In other news, the “Draft Gore” movement is trying to put Al Gore on the ballot in Virginia.
In other other news, the Republican party will be deciding its Senate nominee via convention rather than by primary next year, to avoid airing “dirty laundry.” This isn’t unheard of; the Virginia Dems chose their presidential nominee that way in 2000.
I hate the primary system in this country. I don’t know any simpler way to put it.
Imagine two huge, unstoppable, uncontrollable systems that are apparently immune to federal, state or any other authority and seem to exist only for their own furtherance. The difference being that Wal-Mart at least gives its customers cheap bananas while the primary system doesn’t do a damn thing for the voters.
There are some proposed reforms to the way we do primaries, but Virginia wouldn’t likely be very influential under any of the proposed systems.
Reform,,,,,ha
Although primaries aren’t perfect, they do seem a good test of a candidate’s mettle, and allows the public to vet them in a way that conventions alone do not. And while it is very possible that one candidate will have wrapped up the nomination by February 12, it’s also possible that that won’t happen, especially if someone out of the top 3 in either race pulls off a strong showing in the early states.