Frist Announces He's Running For President

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Even for presidential nominations? Why would they have that?

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In New York you can switch parties before the primary to vote in the opposite party's primary, and then switch back the next week.

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Well if your a liberal good luck on trying to vote in the republican primaries.

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This comment shows an ignorance of the political process and political parties in general. There are liberals in the Republican Party just as there are conservatives in the Democratic Party.

[FishHooks]

There are liberals who may occasionally vote republican (and vise versa) but no liberal is a member of the Republican party or vise versa.

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There are liberals who may occasionally vote republican (and vise versa) but no liberal is a member of the Republican party or vise versa.

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Really?

Zell Miller is a member of the Democratic Party and Lowell Weicker was a member of the Republican Party for decades. In case you don't know, Zell Miller was a very conservative senator and Lowell Weicker was a very liberal governor. I think you should quit while you are behind.

[DVaut1]

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Even for presidential nominations? Why would they have that?

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There are lots of reasons. Here are a few:

- some voters could conceivably feel intimidated if they had to go to their local polling station and request a ballot for one party or the other; if you live in a big city, this might seem outrageously unnecesary. If you live in a rural area where the polling workers can sometimes be friends, neighbors, employers, etc. - the state has an interest in insuring that voters don't feel intimated. It might also seem ridiculous in our era; but consider Southern voters during the Jim Crow era where political choices could have dire personal consequences.

- I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan; it's pretty much a one party city (Democrats win all key elections - mayor, city council, school board, etc.). Voters who want to keep their Republican affiliation (or independent, or Green, Libertarian, etc.) but still want to have their vote 'count' will typically demand open primaries, since the only real, competitive elections in one party areas occur in the primaries, not the general election. In Ann Arbor, for example, Republicans would vote for the most conservative of the Democrats running in Race XYZ in the primary, as there is no real 'choice' in the general election. This is probably much more common than you might initially think and probably constitutes much of the advocacy on behalf of open primaries.

- Some independent voters don't want to register with a party but still want to participate, so they advocate for open primaries.

- Some feel it increases broader participation, which theoretically makes our electoral system more democratic, and consequently, more legitimate.

There are actually two types of open primaries:
1) Voters are given a ballot with candidates from both parties listed, but are only allowed to select candidates from one party in each race; this is separate from closed primaries in that voters aren't forced to declare their party affiliation, and non-party members are free to vote for whichever party they so choose. So a registered Democrat could vote for Republicans in the primary - but they must vote for only Republicans in that primary election.

2) Blanket primaries are the second; voters can choose candidates from either party in every race. For instance, a voter could vote for a Republican in the US presidential primary, a Democrat in the Senate primary, etc. Blanket primaries have frequently had their constitutionality challenged in states where this system has appeared.

[Matty]

Don't type that much for him. I promise you he won't read it.

[DVaut1]

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There are liberals who may occasionally vote republican (and vise versa) but no liberal is a member of the Republican party or vise versa.

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The godfathers of conservative political philosophy, particularly ones who expounded extensivley on economic theory, would likely have considered themselves quite liberal; even some of the leaders of the Republican Party today were once dedicated leftists who haven't quite abandoned some of the theories they once embraced (Paul Wolfowitz/Donald Rumselfeld/other neocons in the upper heirarchy of the Bush administration and their belief in Keynesian economics comes to mind).

[TransientR]

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"In a break with Bush, Senate Republican leader Bill Frist will support bill to expand federal financing for embryonic stem cell research -- expected to announce decision Friday am in lengthy Senate speech... MORE..."

Criticize the source, but if it's true, he's pretty much just kicked off his campaign

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Who cares?

He has the charisma of a dead mackeral. He had to do something like this because of his pathetic blundering re. the Schiavo case among other missteps.

Whatever his ambitions are, he has next to no chance to become president.

Frank

[FishHooks]

Those people are conservative by their party standards. Zell Miller was a more conservative liberal (more moderal) however peoples views change and now he is proboly a republican.

[FishHooks]

I know most of that, I just didn't get why they would have an open primary for presidential elections in some states, since there are options on both sides. My county is largely republican and we also have open primaries for local elections but that wasn't what I was talking about