Nobody likes primaries.Nobody, that is, if you limit your survey to political party leaders and other insiders. These people insist that primary elections dilute the party's message, waste resources that could be used fighting the opposite party, and lower the party's chances of winning the general election, which is, after all, the election that counts.
Or is it?
In most cases, legislative districts are drawn by legislators. More specifically, they are drawn by the legislative leaders of the majority party. Naturally, these leaders draw lines that are most beneficial to their own party. As a result, most legislative districts are "safe" for one party or the other, which means that the favored party's nominee is almost certain to win the general election.
In other words, the primary election is the only election where voters get a real choice.
The "conventional wisdom" is that a primary battle weakens the eventual nominee. Candidates are busy battling each other instead of the opposition party. They're also spending a lot of money just to get nominated. Therefore, the logic proceeds, the party should choose its nominee without a primary, and present a united front to the voters.
What most people don't remember is that the term "convention wisdom" was coined in order to debunk it.
When a party has no primary battles, the nominees aren't chosen based on any ability to communicate with voters, much less an ability to garner votes. Nominees chosen "behind closed doors" are usually chosen less for their ideas than for their loyalty to party bosses. When a political party gets into the habit of discouraging primary battles, it stagnates, developing the political version of arteriosclerosis.
Conversely, the winner of a primary contest, particularly a tough one, has already been through an electoral process. The nominee is hardened, tempered, better able to handle attacks from an opponent in a general election in those few cases where the general election is not a foregone conclusion, and better prepared to move up in a situation where the candidate's party wants to take a seat away from the opposition party.
In other words, primary contests are the training ground.
Furthermore, a contested primary is the only time when candidates from the same party can be forced to debate ideas. It is the only time when a political party must let in some light and air, cleansing old ideas and refining them - or replacing them - as the social, economic, and political situation changes.
In other words, primary contests are political evolution in action.
Party leaders are always uneasy about primary contests, but they are the best way to develop new ideas, new candidates, and new solutions to new problems. Without primaries, stagnation and ossification reign, leading to a political party's decline. With strong, healthy primary contests, particularly in "safe" districts, the party can grow, evolve, and stay strong.
Copyright 2006, Dan Jacoby
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