Play in Your Own Sandbox

Rumor has it that some Macon Republicans are engaged in a coordinated effort to encourage Republicans to vote in the Democratic Primary for the upcoming municipal elections. According Peach Pundit, former state senator, Susan Cable has sent a letter to Republicans urging them to vote in the Democratic primary and admonishing them to remember what happened the last time they failed to do just that. (Jack Ellis narrowly defeated Buck Melton.)

I find this interesting on a number of levels. First of all, there is a contested mayor's race on the Republican side of the ballot. It's true that provided the Democrats fail to choose an axe murderer or a child molester, the Republican does not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning in November, but, still, their primary race is contested. I've heard (again, this is rumor) that the Republican Party is not pleased with Ms. Cable's letter. I have some more basic questions about it:


1) How many people did it go to?

2) Who paid for it?

3) And, was there a "paid for by" line on the letter?

4) If it was broadly distributed, then who provided/paid for access to the Voter File.

And, last but not least...

5) Is one of the Democratic candidates behind this effort?

I'm not sure, but, if the letter were broadly distributed, then I think that it just might fall under the category of attempting to influence an election and trigger certain reporting requirements. Someone out there please correct me if I am wrong.

You know, I think that the open primary system we have in Georgia is a mistake. Unlike some other states, in Georgia, when someone registers to vote, they do not have to affiliate with a political party, and when they go to vote in a primary election, they may vote in either, but not both, the Democratic or Republican Primary. Why is that a problem? Because, the purpose of the primary is for the political party to choose the candidate who will best represent the values and platform of that Party to compete against the candidate of the other party in the general election. Current demographics in the City indicate that a Republican will not be viable in a citywide election. Similarly, in my neck of the woods, a Democrat is unlikely to be successful as a House or Senate candidate. Those are the breaks.

It's one thing for an individual to make the choice to crossover and vote in the other party's primary, but an organized effort on the part of one political party to impact the results of the other party's primary just doesn't seem like fair play to me. And, if Erick's information is correct, then I'd like to know who's funding the effort. I'm pretty sure that if it became known in the City that one of the Democratic Candidates funded, encouraged or endorsed the effort, then he or she would pay a price among acutal Democratic voters.

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