So over the course of this long, slow Thursday at the office, I've managed to get myself mired in a heated email debate about the 2000 New Hampshire Republican primary, and open primaries in general. My friend and I agree on one basic fact: that McCain beat Bush; from there on out we diverge. According to my account of things, McCain beat Bush because he was popular among independents.
According to my friend McCain only beat Bush because all the independents voted for McCain not out of conviction, but purely out of a desire to upset Bush's momentum, thereby ensuring a longer primary season, in which both candidates would go negative and make each other look worse, to the Democratic nominee's benefit.
In fact, he thinks that New Hampshire voters like to stay independent in order to vote in the other party's primary and messing things up.
Further, he claims that something similar is going on right now with John Edwards; that GOP and independent voters are going to open primaries such as Wisconsin's and voting for Edwards, in a mass attempt to prolong the race for the nomination, so the candidates spend all their money and beat up on each other.
To me, this sounds insane, this sounds like he needs to take off the old tinfoil hat. But I'm wrong so frequently that I decided I would like to check with the dKos community. Does anyone agree with his assessment of the 2000 NH GOP primary? Does anyone think something similar is going on this time around?