Jeers to The Columbian’s smug and sanctimonious Nov. 8 jeer “Loss of top-two primary in Oregon disappoints,” concerning Oregon’s rejection of the top-two primary. Perhaps Oregon voters weren’t ignoring the fact that all parties are welcome in the primary but instead didn’t like, like a lot of us in Washington, that we end up with a choice of only two candidates for each office. Whether the two are Democrat and Republican or two Democrats or two Republicans, the two will almost certainly be some combination of those two, and nothing else. Lesser parties are virtually certain to be absent from the general election.
Lesser parties play an important role in politics, when allowed to. When neither the Republican nor the Democratic candidate passes muster with the general population, a third-party candidate can win the election and has done so in the past. Some may call this candidate a spoiler, but a spoiler is what is often needed to keep the Republicans from being too right wing and the Democrats from being too left wing.
It’s too bad that nuances like this weren’t fully thought through when this type of primary was voted in here in Washington. There are other ways of allowing all to vote in the primary election. We should have tried one of those. And then perhaps we could call ourselves innovative and thoughtful in regard to voting methods.
Peter Kitchen
Vancouver
