 - ludlow1
- Respected Neighbor
- Pawtucket, RI
- 442 Posts
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Dear Neighbors,
An open letter to Pawtucket politicians:
Please feel free to hand out or post brochures on my property. I really do not mind. However, what really baffles me is one question. "Why do you not ring my doorbell and ask me to vote for you?" One never knows unless he or she requests.
Secondly, why do I not meet the political candidates? Since I began voting in 1977, I have only met two political candidates at my door. We engaged in interesting conversation on the issues. Oddly enough, the two have come to my door since 2006.
In conclusion, a politician running for office can only get so far in a small city such as Pawtucket by handing out brochures and placing Internet notices. I really would like to meet you.
What do you think, neighbors?
Peace,
Jim
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 - nap
- Respected Neighbor
- Pawtucket, RI
- 3152 Posts
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Many walk the streets and knock on doors and chat...bu as the flyers appear, many enlist family and friends to distribute, but like the UPS folks, many just wan t you to pick up their flyer and thus the doorbell...but call the candidate is always in order.
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- nap
- Respected Neighbor
- Pawtucket, RI
- 3152 Posts
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| The foolishness of party primaries |
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on 09-22-2008 00:04 
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Politics as Usual by Jim Baron
Journalists are persnickety, and rightly so, about joining organizations, especially political groups and particularly political parties, that might cast doubt on their objectivity.
Some reporters and editors I know don't vote at all to preserve a perception of pristine objectivity, but I think that is going too far. Voting is a basic right and you shouldn't have to forfeit that right to avoid having your work called into question. A greater number of reporters and editors do not vote in primaries, because that identifies you with a particular party and, for the few moments between when you pick up the ballot and when you sign the disaffiliation form, it makes you a member of that party. (It also subjects you to a whole slew of junk mail from that party's candidates in the next election cycle.)
I, for one, have no such luxury because I live in Cumberland.
Like several other Rhode Island communities I can think of - Pawtucket comes to mind - if Cumberland residents want a say in who is going to be running their town, setting their property tax rates and performing the other important functions of municipal government, they pretty much have to vote in the Democratic primary or else be disenfranchised. If these people wait until November they are only going to see one name on the ballot for each office, just like in the old Soviet Union. There are certain exceptions, yes, Pawtucket Mayor James Doyle has an opponent this November, but Don Grebien is really another Democrat who chose to run as an independent to avoid the primary. An entrenched mayor like Doyle - or Mayor Charles Moreau in Central Falls, who was a major player in the District 9 Senate race that defeated longtime incumbent Daniel Issa - has sufficient control over the party machinery to call the shots in a low-turnout primary and largely determine the winner who will run unopposed in November. That's not how the civics textbooks say elections should be conducted.
So if you don't want to be disenfranchised from choosing who is going to lead your community, and, in many cases, who will represent you in the General Assembly, you have to join the Democratic Party for at least five minutes every two years. I'm sure there are other communities somewhere (O.K., maybe not so much in Rhode Island) where your only choice is among Republicans in that party's primary.
This is wrong. A lot of people, not just reporters, may be reluctant to vote in a party primary if they are not a member of that party - in Rhode Island, unaffiliated voters are by far the majority. So in some cases the only real choice between candidates for important elective offices comes in a primary where a paltry percentage of the people (it was 9.97 percent on Sept. 9, according to the Board of Elections) participate in the voting.
Besides that, the conventional wisdom holds that the great majority of people don't really start to pay attention to politics until Labor Day, once the summer is over and kids are back to school. Great! In Rhode Island, that gives them about a week before the primary election that in many cities and towns and General Assembly districts will provide their only choice among candidates for public office.
And you wonder why politics and government are so screwed up?
What is even wronger (I know wronger isn't a word, but that's how bad this is) is that your tax dollars and mine, both in budget-squeezed cities and towns and at the deficit devastated state level, were squandered by putting the election mechanisms - local boards of canvassers, the state Board of Elections, the Secretary of State's office - at the disposal of these two private political clubs so they could choose their nominees. What makes them rate?
The solution is non-partisan elections at the local, state and federal level - every race from a seat on the local water commission to President of the United States.
Political parties are all well and good. They have a perfect right to form, establish a platform, choose the candidates they want to carry their banner, and campaign for them vocally and vigorously. I have no problem with that.
But what are they doing being part of the election infrastructure? Why do Democrats and Republicans get a government-run-and-paid-for primary election that makes their nominees the "official" candidates, relegating all others to "third party" status, or some other derogatory term? The Republicans and Democrats offer us Pepsi or Coke and we pretend we are making a significant democratic choice.
Don't let anyone buffalo you into thinking we have a "two-party system" in this country. We don't. You won't find the word "party" anywhere in the U.S. Constitution - the founders called them "factions" back then (you won't find that word, either) and they hoped to avoid their formation at all costs.
We should eliminate this partisan favoritism in our elections. Non-partisan elections would put all candidates on an equal playing field, and taxpayer dollars would no longer be put at the disposal of political parties.
It is a simple and fair process. All candidates are listed for each office, with their spot on the ballot determined by lottery the way it is done now, and people vote for whomever they choose.
This is not reinventing the wheel. This system works wonderfully in many states and locations. It would eliminate the perception that the only real choice for local, state and national leaders is between the Democrats and Republicans.
Woonsocket has non-partisan elections for local offices, as do North Smithfield and Central Falls. Pawtucket had non-partisan elections until a decade or so ago when Democrats on the City Council decided to force the city's taxpayers to pay for their party's nomination apparatus.
In a non-partisan election, I would be happy with the person who gets the most votes being certified the winner. But I understand the argument that to be elected, a candidate should be required to get 50 percent plus one of the vote, so if there has to be a run-off between the top two finishers, that wouldn't be totally bad (although, I insist, unnecessary). In some states these runoffs are held after the November election. The system used around here is probably better, with a preliminary election in October to determine the top two finishers who face off in November, when non-affiliated voters as well as Republicans and Democrats are going to the polls to elect presidents and governors and congresspersons and state legislators.
In Cumberland, and in West Warwick, fiscal insult is being added to civic injury this year with a lot of post-primary folderol. Now the taxpayers in those communities are going to be forced to pony up money to defend lawsuits because in one case the candidate didn't like the outcome of the taxpayer-sponsored primary and in the other there was a tie that nobody knows how to resolve.
In Cumberland, they came up with a common-sense solution to the tie vote: let the Democratic Party decide who the Democratic candidate should be. Gee, why didn't somebody think of that before we had to pay for a primary? No, now taxpayers, the overwhelming percentage of whom did not participate in the primary and are not members of the party, are going to have to foot the bill for overpaid lawyers to argue about these primaries in court.
The Democratic and Republican parties want to decide who their candidates will be in various races at the local and statewide levels? Let them rent out a hall for a convention. Or let them rent out a series of polling places on their designated primary day and staff them with volunteers or their own paid personnel. Republicans like small government, private enterprise and taking personal responsibility - they should be the first to step up and run their own primaries and challenge their Democratic counterparts to do the same.
Where is the state legislator, or the U.S. Congressman or Senator, with the integrity and the guts to introduce the Pay for Your Own Damned Primaries Act of 2009? |
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These guys and gals need to get off their duffs and talk to real people like us
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