John Avlon Exhibit A for the Galactically Stupid: Primaries Are Not Meant to Be Universally Representative

John Avlon hack writer for Newsweek and The Daily Beast wrote a piece today using the unhinged liberal lefts 2nd favorite (second only to Sarah Palin – an obvious trend of hate for strong willed, principled women) punching bag, Christine O’Donnell, to try and make the absurd case for open primaries.

The lesson: Closed partisan primaries are fundamentally unrepresentative. They’re too easily hijacked by ideological activists and party hacks beholden to special interests. And because these local primaries are the gauntlet that candidates have to run, they lead directly to the culture of hyperpartisanship that now threatens to paralyze our capacity for effective self-government.

This statement is galactically stupid for two reasons:

1) Primaries Are Not Meant to be Universally Representative — The reason for a primary is for a Party to choose its nominee…period! The general population has it’s own election, John, It’s called the general election. If Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and the rest are not allowed to hold closed primaries there’s little need to have party’s in the first place. Maybe John is advocating for the abolishment of the political party system in the United States?

2) “They’re too easily hijacked by ideological activists and party hacks beholden to special interests” — Party’s, Republican, Democrat, and the like are by definition special interests. Yes Party’s are also at risk of being hijacked by ideological activists… the Democrat Party has fallen victim to this over the last two decades having been hijacked or infiltrated by far left extremists — but the answer isn’t open primaries, the answer is better party leadership and education of its members.

Opening primaries defeats the purpose of having them in the fist place and I suspect John Avlon is advocating for this process so Democrats and Independents can sway Republican primaries… but that’s just a guess on my part.

While bashing O’Donnell in order to try and make his point Avlon, like many so-called “columnists” who revel in the politics of personal destruction, misrepresents and fabricates his own set of facts about the Delaware race. Let’s take them one at a time, shall we:

A) Avlon holds Mike Castle out to be a strong fiscal conservative but on Feb. 25 2009 Castle voted yes with the Democrats on the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009. Castle also supported FinReg, Cap-and-trade, and the Disclose Act. On top of all that Castle held a dismal 52% lifetime average from the American Conservative Union (ACU) in other words, someone who scores near 50%, indicates that they vote with the radical left on 50% of the core issues.

Club for Growth

Castle scores a horrendous 43% from CFG for 2009.  Again, since his announced Senate bid he has been much more conservative than previous years.  In 07 and 08 he earned a 35% and 26% respectively.  In every year, Castle has had the most liberal voting record of any member of the 175+ Republican caucus.

B) Avlon says; “Mike Castle was considered a traitor to the conservative cause because he had a record of working across the aisle.” Wrong! Mike Castle was considered not worthy of the Republican nomination because he was clearly carrying water for the Obama administration and was voting for or supporting laws that were staggering when it comes to direct violations of his oath to protect the rights and liberties of Americans!

C) Avlon make the assertion that the reason O’Donnell lost in the general was due to her being too extreme… this too is not a statement of fact but an opinion, wrongheaded at that, that doesn’t hold up.  The fact is the Republican Party of Delaware led by Tom Ross, establishment buddy of Mike Castle, decided that instead of supporting the nominee whomever that may be (as they fiercely advocated before the primary election) they would instead join the democrats in attacking O’Donnell. The Party nonsense that went down in Delaware had nothing to do with the candidates alleged extreme views it was all about revenge for taking down one of their own.

So there you have it… John Avlon has presented false information and selective reasoning to try and make a point that closed primaries are bad because Republican and Democrats should not be the ones choosing their nominees, that should be left up to everyone… way to go John, have fun with that logic.