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December 10, 2007

Cali Dems get it, when will Oregon Dems?

I caught the end of a segment on NPR the other day where a couple California strategists, one Dem and one GOPer, were being interviewed.

The Dem strategist made a very interesting assertion. He said that the hardest thing to do in politics is to get a voter to do something for the first time. The second and third times are much easier because the voter becomes used to doing whatever that thing is. He went on to discuss briefly how the California Democratic Party allows independents to vote in the Dem primary for this very reason.

"There are a lot of decline-to-state voters in this state who tend to have Democratic ideals and values,'' said Roger Salazar, a spokesman for the state party. "We're happy to have them vote in our primary.''

The Democratic Party of Washington takes it a step further.

"We don't even have a list of party members in our state, but that's never been a concern,'' said Michael King, a spokesman for the Washington Democratic Party. "The more people who can participate in our primary, the better.''

An argument that I've been making for a long time now is that it's unfair to force non-Dems to foot the bill for the primary and turn around and deny us a voice in it.

Steven Hill, director of the political reform program for the nonpartisan New America Foundation, puts it like this.

"All taxpayers have to pay for this primary election, but 20 percent of the voters can't be involved,'' he said. "Unless the parties want to pay for the elections themselves, they shouldn't be private affairs. We need to get back to the point of view of the voters, not what's good for the political parties.''

Seems to me that for all of Oregonian's pride in being progressive (bottle bill, waterways = public right-of-way, medical marijuana, death with dignity, etc.), including having come up with the primary election itself, we're behind the curve compared to our neighbors to the North and South.

The Cali Dems take a decidedly pragmatic view,

"Our goal is to increase Democratic voter registration,'' Salazar said. "If we can let independent voters know they're welcome, maybe the next time they re-register, they will check the 'D' box.''

Maybe, maybe not. But you can bet that a lot of Cali Indies feel a lot warmer and fuzzier about the Cali Dems than they do about the Cali GOPers.

Posted by Kevin at December 10, 2007 08:54 AM