Michigan has long been one of the most politically progressive states in the country. But we’ve had a hard time getting presidential primaries right. The first time we tried, back in the progressive era, voters showed a baffling tendency to cross party lines or write in Henry Ford, who many figured had done more for the state than any politician had. The politicians then did away with primaries.
But disenchanted young voters, mostly Democrats, demanded a say after they felt party bosses ignored the voters’ wishes in the bruising year of 1968. Michigan moved to a primary system in 1972, and for the Democrats, it turned out to be disaster.
The election was held the day after segregationist George Wallace was nearly killed in an assassination attempt.
Republicans had essentially no contest, and Wallace won an enormous landslide in a huge sympathy turnout. The liberals who ran the party establishment were humiliated. The primary worked well for both parties in 1976, but Democrats thereafter abandoned it.
They chose their delegates in 1980 through a caucus system so complex that few voters took part and almost no one understood it.
Eight years later, Jesse Jackson supporters did figure it out, and by shrewd stealthy planning, won the Michigan caucuses easily.
That drove Democrats back to a primary in 1992– which again worked well, helping to nominate Bill Clinton. But then they abandoned it once more. They went back to a modified caucus system in which presidential delegates are elected by those few voters who can figure out where they should show up on a Saturday afternoon.
Republicans had their own turn at being embarrassed in 2000, when John McCain easily won the primary here. The party establishment was overwhelmingly for George W. Bush.
But many Democrats and independents liked McCain better, and crossed party lines to vote for him. Last time, neither party wanted a primary. So the legislature suspended the law that called for one. Now, both parties are scrambling to decide what to do.
What they should do is clear. Each party should have a presidential primary on the same day. All Michiganders should be able to vote in either, but not both. That would solve the so-called sabotage problem. I know, however, that some party bosses won’t be happy.
They want only hundred percent loyalists to select their delegates. Trouble is, most of us in Michigan are independent cusses. Sixty-two percent of us voted for conservative Republican Gov. John Engler when he ran for re-election in 1998.
Four years later, sixty-one percent of us voted for liberal Democrat Carl Levin for the U.S. Senate. We like to change our minds. John Dingell’s wife Debbie used to be a Republican. Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis’ family backed Jimmy Carter in 1976.
And that’s fine. This is a free country. Let the voters decide, let the chips fall where they may, and just remember that if you don’t vote – and sadly, most of us won’t -- you really shouldn’t complain.
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