Shouldn’t REPUBLICANS Vote in Republican Primaries?
From Wizbang Politics:
Senator John McCain’s campaign is quietly trying to change the rules for the California Republican Primary to allow independents to vote. Current law requires primary voters to be registered Republicans. Ralph Z. Hallow of the Washington Times reports:
Sen. John McCain’s campaign is mounting a stealth effort to change Republican presidential nomination rules in California to allow independents to vote in the Feb. 5 primary, party and campaign officials in the state have told The Washington Times.
The impact could be huge — and potentially damaging to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, currently the most acceptable to traditional-values voters among the three top-tier Republican presidential candidates.
“If California changes its delegate selection rules to allow independent voters to participate in the Republican primary, it would be very helpful for McCain and for Rudy Giuliani, who historically have done very well among independent voters,” Federal Election Commissioner Michael E. Toner said.
Read it all at the link above. Giuliani’s people are using the same “it’s a state issue” stock answer, so they may be involved as well. It is certainly more crucial for McCain, who has seen his support among the Republican base, limited from the start due to his frequent apostasies, slipping steadily away.
Without independents and crossover Democratic voters, McCain wouldn’t have made any real noise in 2000, either.
Please go read the whole story. This is one of the MAJOR reasons I didn’t support McCain in 2000 when I lived in Arizona - his home state. He’s not really interested in Republican support to win the nomination. He’s more interested in watering down the process for his advantage. If Guiliani’s camp is also involved in these types of stunts, I’m just as disappointed.
Posted by Falcon
March 8th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Mr. Election Reform Himself - took a page out of the Liberal’s Hypocrisy Handbook. Can’t say I’m surprised.
June 21st, 2007 at 9:45 pm
“Current law requires primary voters to be registered Republicans.”
That’s not true! The law allows for parties to decide 135 days before an election whether they want undeclared (i.e. “decline to state”) voters to vote in their primaries. They always do.
But this doesn’t apply of course to independents (as in the American Independent party) they’re a different story b/c they’re registered with a different party.
I think McCain is manipulating the language intentionally as a political stunt.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_decline.htm