I'm not "anti-primary" in the general sense. I'm just against primaries that have the potential to be bloody and give little time for the nominee to gain momentum (each of the state I'm citing has a September primary). I'm also against candidates who are in the pockets of corporate contributors with a grudge against their opponent.
First example: New York Gubernatorial election - Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi is running a primary challenge against Elliot Spitzer. Suozzi is trying to run as a outsider-type, who will tackle property taxes and medicaid. On the surface, he seems like a nice guy, but not quite. For one thing, he has taken money from Kenneth Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, who donated $135,000 to Tom Suozzi. Suozzi has refused to return the money. Suozzi is also running because of ambition. Unfortunately, I cannot find the exact NYTimes article, but it was from around January, and said that he wanted to run because if he doesn't now, he won't have another chance for 8+ years. Wow Tom, is there anything more important than your naked ambition? To top it off, NYS and NYC have a culture of late/bloody primaries and politics that only help the winner on the other side. D'Amato knew this when he helped shove Pataki's potential challengers out of the way in 1994, and Bloomberg knew this in 2001. William Weld also knows that running against John Faso will hurt the Republican chances. Unfortunately, Democrats don't understand this. For example, the bitter 2001 Mayoral Primary between Mark Green and Fernando Ferrer (which caused Ferrer supporters to sit on their hands) and the nasty 2002 Gubnernatorial primary between Andrew Cuomo and Carl McCall (Cuomo dropped out right before the primary and drained McCall of time and money. This contributed to McCall losing in every county except for four of the boroughs.) were anything but clean.
I don't want Faso do get fodder from Suozzi's bullshit, and I don't want to someone who is dishonest enough to take money from Langone to have a parasitical effect on this race.
Second Example: Maryland's Senate race - Paul Sarbanes is retiring, so MD is one of the few open seats this election. Representative Ben Cardin is the Democratic frontrunner, while Lieutenant Governor/Erlich buttboy Michael Steele. This is the same guy who compared stem cell research to the Holocaust!
Unfortunately, Mfume's background is less than steller. He father several illegitimate children, and he has been dogged with sexual harrassment allegations while head of the NAACP. To be fair, Mfume's offspring were sired before he cleaned himself up as a younger man, but combined with sexual harrassment allegations, his candidacy is in a world of hurt. As a result, he polls worse than Cardin and often trails Steele while Cardin leads.
If Maryland voters are given the choice between Mfume and Steele, they will vote for a black person who is "like them," that is, someone who people in Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County can vote for. They will view Mfume as a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton type of figure.I mean this paragraph with no disrespect or any negative intentions, but this is the reallity of how moderate suburbanites plan to vote. Another reason why this is a problem is because Maryland's primary is the same day as New York's - September 12th. The winner of a racially-polarizing primary could have part of his constituency sitting on their hands, as Steele walks away with a win. This will be the NYC 2001 Mayoral Race all over again, with Cardin as Mark Green, Mfume as Fernando Ferrer, and Steele as Michael Bloomberg (NYC voters who followed this race will understand my analogy.)
Final example: Hawaii Senate race - Daniel Akaka may be one of our oldest Senators, but he's still a reliable one. Moderate-Conservative Congressman Ed Case is trying to run against him. This is the inverse of Lieberman-Lamont, as Case is more conservative than Akaka (he's a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which is to the right of the DLC) His arguement for running is that Akaka's age will be an issue, as if he dies while Republican Governor Linda Lingle is still in office, then she gets to appoint a Republican as a replacement. Here's one MAJOR flaw in Case's position: Hawaiian law requires the Governor to fill offices that a vacant with people from the same party as the previous office-holder. Lingle tried to dodge this once when state Representative Ken Hiraki decided to leave for the private sector. She appointed a Republican who had only recently switched parties, Bev Harbin. As a reaction, the Democratic state legislature is considering (have they passed this yet) a bill that would limit Governor Lingle's ability to cheat. It would also cover Senate vacancies.
Another problem is the failure of the Native Hawaiian bill. Case might try to capitalize on the failure of Akaka's legislation (according to Hawaiian pundits anyway.) This would be unfair, as the Republicans were the ones who voted this down, and Case himself even supports the bill. To top this off, Hawaii has a September 23rd, one of the latest state primaries in this country.
http://www.oursenate.com/...