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RANDY STAPILUS Oregon |
The problem – or is it an asset? - that the advocates of a top-two primary in Oregon have may be in part that the advocates are hard to easily define.
The opposition is clear enough, and it starts with both major political parties. It's easy to understand why: The current closed primary system in Oregon gives both parties a great deal of internal control over the system and effectively shuts out people who don't declare a membership within either. Primary election ballots for non-D and non-R voters is awfully thin.
Of course, this also has had a gradual effect of pushing each party away from each other, and of hearing less (and having to respond less) toward the large number of people in the middle, or simply on the sidelines. Add the number of people who either register as a member of no party or with the Independent Party of Oregon, and you have a third major party (in number, albeit unorganized) whose impact on state politics could be vast.
The Oregonian reported on September 12 that the backers of a top-two system received a lot of money from business-supportive people and groups, which suggests one set of possible outcomes (a broader-appealing set of Republican candidates) that some backers might like. Some of them may be looking across the state line to Washington's 4th congressional district.
That state has a top-two system (as does California) and in the 4th, the two candidates who advance to the general election are Clint Didier, a Tea Party hard liner, and Dan Newhouse, a more centrist conservative (who was endorsed by the district's current Republican representative, Doc Hastings). In the primary, Didier came in first, and had the parties simply selected their nominees at that point, he would have become the Republican nominee running in the fall against a Democrat; in this very Republican district, he would have won easily. Under the new system, two Republicans – Didier and Newhouse – will be running, and Newhouse has the odds since he is likely to pick up most of the non-Republican, as well as many of the Republican, votes.
Democrats may not have been thrilled about having no candidate in the 4th come November; and if Didier loses the Tea Party won't be thrilled either. But the people in between in the 4th may be happier with their choices.
Points worth reflecting as Oregon considers in a few weeks how to structure its own primaries.
