Increasing Awareness

Open Primaries Could Stem GOP Slide

So this is an interesting thesis. In California, Republican primaries forced Republicans to move right, alienating them from the rest of voters. With an “open primary” republican and democratic candidates compete against each other and the best candidates advance regardless of party. Cool :)

 To win their respective Republican primaries, gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman and Senate candidate Carly Fiorina tacked to the right on abortion, health care, taxes and immigration. …  Having moved to the right to win over conservatives, Whitman and Fiorina found they couldn’t get back to the white stripe in the middle of the road. 

If the open primary idea spreads, it could help put a brake on the GOP’s rightward lurch outside California as well. Many Congressional Republicans fear that if they vote to raise the debt limit, they will earn themselves a primary challenge from the right.