2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: What do Hillary Supporters have against open primaries? [View all]Karma13612
(4,552 posts)When I bring up the obscenely long deadline between declaring your party affiliation to Democrat in NY, to the date of the closed primary, (6 months!!), I was told that people should just learn the rules and stick to them. And also, there were a lot of people who felt that having Independents have a say in "our" Democratic primary is wrong.
So, not sure how that would work in the future. I mean, do we want to be inclusive and get Dems and progressives into office or not?
Until there is more viability for a 3 or more party system, then closed primaries are going to be the bane of anyone thinking progressive and who wants to get into office and represent the progressives in this country.
If Bernie had run independent, he would not get enuf votes and would split the votes on the "democratic side" of things when stacked up against the republicans, so the republicans win. In my view, he had no choice but to run as a Dem, and do the best he can.
And having open primaries work in his favor. Since everyone already knows Hillary, and she is quite established as a Democrat, her base is pretty solid, not too much switching from Independent or Republican I wouldn't imagine. But, Bernie supporters are representing Independents, and those unaffiliated in some cases. Once people hear about Bernie, that get enthusiastic and want to do whatever it takes to vote for him. In closed Primaries, this can be difficult if their decision comes AFTER the deadline to change affiliation to the Democratic party.
Open Primaries for all!!!