A reader writes:
I am a political scientist, and I know the literature Masket is citing in criticizing Prop 14. And yet I voted for the proposition because the system here is so completely broken, and this is only way I had to vent my frustration with it. Sure, there are uncertainties, but it’s hard to see how this ungovernable state could get any worse.
In addition, I think that third party voters are actually helped by this system. Consider Green voters who want to vote for a Green candidate but prefer the Democrat to the Republican. Do they vote their conscience, knowing that their preferred candidate cannot win, or strategically, to help the chances of their second best candidate? Prop 14 eliminates this dilemma. These voters can vote their conscience in the primary and then vote for their most preferred major party candidate in the general.
Another writes:
I'm a Californian who is somewhat mystified by the opposition to this measure. I voted for it yesterday based on experiences of the past several years, during which politicians have had to take ever more extreme positions in order to get through the primaries.
Arlen Specter quit the Republican party due to a primary challenge, Jon McCain has gone off to crazy land in order to prove he's not a RINO, and in the current California governor race Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner spent millions of dollars filling the airways with attack ads about who would be tougher on immigration in a state in which 36% of the population is Hispanic!
It's true that this solution won't be perfect, but the mantra that "perfect is the enemy of good" seems very relevant here. The fears voiced by the bloggers you cited may have merit, but it's hard to see how that's any worse than a system in which moderate candidates have almost no chance unless they tack hard right or hard left. Given a choice between the current madness and a possibility of something saner, I'd rather roll the dice and see how things turn out.
Another:
A lot of us are sick of being Republicans in Democratic-dominated districts, or vice-versa, where the only election that matters is the party primary. True, under the new system you could end up with two conservatives, or two liberals in the final round. But at least the whole electorate would get to express its choice. And the charade of choosing between a Republican and a Democrat in the general election in certain districts is nonsense anyways. Who cares if people in San Francisco end up choosing between left and left-er in the 2nd round? That's probably the salient choice for them.
Another:
What should be noted is that redistricting reform is underway in California as well, which will remove redistricting from the Legislature and put it in the hands of a commission. With districts that are not so precisely gerrymandered and hopefully more balanced, what we may see is that candidates will have to tack to the middle more often than not. Clearly, this won't necessarily occur in Santa Monica, Berkeley, and some of the state's hard right communities. But overall, the hope is that these two measures will complement each other and lead to some filling in of the no-one's land that currently is the political center in the legislature. I made this point to an assemblyperson once, while they were busy bashing the open primary initiative, and they practically shouted me down. There's a fear in the parties' machinery and their respective special interest groups of this potential future.