The
threshold to avoid a primary is a two way sword. An 85/15 would make it easier for a weak
challenger to get to a primary, but impossible to eliminate the
incumbent without large amounts of money or fame. That was the Count My Vote / Buy My Vote request originally.
Added to that the eliminating of any kind of multiple round and you could
have 6 candidates in the primary, one of which would always be the incumbent.
They
couldn't get 85/15, so they next tried 75/25. Almost impossible for an
incumbent not to get 25% and make it to a primary. Yes, the incumbent is
going to have a harder time getting 75%, but if the goal is more
primaries that cost more money, it is one step closer to Buy My Vote or Buy My Ads.
Add the elimination of the multiple round and you could get 3 or 4
candidates going to the primary. 70/30 allows up to 3 and again makes it
harder to eliminate an incumbent.
Yes,
the goal of 60/40 may have been to help the incumbents, but after Jason Chaffetz
almost won in convention and Bennett and Gov. Walker lost, those that wanted
to protect the incumbents realized they made a mistake with the 60/40 and many for years have wanted to switch it back. Two legislators were
eliminated at convention this year. And yes, we still have some
primaries, but not as many as we get with 2/3 or 70%.
In
2012 Utah, we have primaries: Hatch/Liljenquist, Dougall/Johnson,
Swallow/Reyes, McCartney/Valdez, Okerlund/Painter, Vickers/Anderson,
Perry/Galvez, Redd/Butterfield, Anderegg/Moore, Handy/Crowder,
Macdonald/Bagley, Sagers/McCoy, Kennedy/Nitta, Muniz/Hendrickson,
Stratton/Murray, Christofferson/Kane, Greene/Stevens, Layton/Daw,
Nelson/Wright, Westwood/Carling, and Crockett/Winder, to name a few. Not
every race had a primary nor should it. Most of those were GOP
primaries.
Since 2000, 1/2 of all state wide and congressional contested GOP races have gone to primary. 44 races, 30 were contested and 15 went to primary.
Yes
a 2/3 threshold would have made a few more primaries, but the risk of an incumbent
losing, or someone rich or famous losing would also go down.
Some
that spoke for the 2/3 or 70% may believe what they have said, but I
totally disagree and many in the SCC and also many of the delegates
disagree as well.
I have always said, The 60% threshold to avoid a primary works, allowing a shot of a
challenger to eliminate an incumbent and yet requires a challenger to be
a strong candidate.
The current system does not protect the incumbent, wealthy or famous. I think that is a good thing.
Finely tuned balance. It won today.
