Who wants Downton Abbey-esque primaries?
By Jennifer Nevins -
Primary season is upon us and that means one thing: the candidates, their boosters, and the grand masters of the IL GOP will put their efforts into admonishing us peons to behave.
The way in which they go about this varies of course, but social media is where the hall monitors patrol. Many of these individuals that normally consider themselves too refined to mix it up with the commoners descend on Facebook in the hopes of tamping down any pointed evaluations of specific candidates.
When those evaluations are accompanied by dissatisfaction, anger, or disgust, the scolding takes a sharp left into shaming. The ones doing the shaming would most assuredly like to just curse us all and get it over with, but we peons are voting peons, so they reluctantly stick with tired clichés like “We are in this together. Why fight other Republicans?” and “We all have to be unified if we have any hope of defeating (insert socialist candidate here).”
Many of us aren’t buying it. Some of us never did.
Contrary to what these self-interested people would have us believe, megawatt scrutiny is a good thing. As most conservative voters in this state well understand, the reluctance to put Republican candidates through the primary wringer has resulted in some truly awful politicians that caused us no end of trouble. (Mark Kirk is the most obvious example here, but there have been numerous others).
Holding a candidate’s record up to the light - especially in the case of current office holders - is what is supposed to occur in a party primary. Pointing out mismatches between a candidate’s promises and his or her actions is supposed to occur in a primary. Making comparisons between candidates is supposed to occur in a primary.
That some of the voters making those comparisons do so bluntly - even crudely - does not matter. Primaries are not tea dances where the guests sip from china cups while nervously working the room. Why would we allow candidates to tell us how to behave when we the voters are supposed to be ones calling the tunes?
And as far as the Illinois GOP leadership goes, robust primaries are their worst nightmare. After all, it’s much easier to funnel all the cattle where they want them to go when there is only one or two chutes from which to choose.
The race in Illinois' 14th Congressional District is a sterling example of this “Let us all come together” phony high-mindedness.
As Republicans gear up to wage electoral war against far-Left Lauren Underwood, numerous GOP primary candidates have lined up. In political parlance, this race has it all: a mix of establishment old guarders, libertarians identifying as conservatives for electoral purposes, and an unapologetic Trump-supporting conservative. Rumor has it there are a few other runners waiting just outside the track. It’s everybody at the starting line, which can often be a lot of fun to watch.
But it’s also a situation that demands that the wheat be separated from the chaff. The very worst thing that could happen here is that we have a polite primary where pointed arguments and observations are not made. Underwood has to be defeated this cycle before she becomes an entrenched incumbent. We cannot afford to tiptoe around rotten records, lousy campaign platforms and delicate sensibilities.
Some people (and they should know who they are) need to either put on their armor and fight it out in the arena of ideas or exit the field completely. Who has the time or the patience for whining hand wringers with ulterior motives?
Current office holding candidates, in particular, can frame their pleas for civility any way they like, but the simple truth is that they cannot stand to be on the hot seat. Of course fending off angry constituents is a drag, and so is defending one’s record - whether that involves not showing up to vote, showing up to vote but voting with Democrats , or prioritizing things like unfettered access to fireworks and pot.
Sometimes the scrutiny has got to be downright embarrassing. But that’s another reason why bruising primary fights are not only acceptable, but critical: lawmakers have to know they will need to give a full accounting of their legislative records. Moreover, the fact that so many of them bristle at blunt characterizations and impolite terminology doesn’t bode well for their abilities to effectively counter the far more caustic rhetoric emanating from the people who really do hate them on the other side of the aisle.
We Republican and Independents can take the fight down to the mat, and when the great mass of primary voters make their call, we can brush ourselves off and support the winning candidate.
You see, dear candidates and party leaders, we are adults - not children. We can manage.
We have no need of your "polite" primaries.
