Operation Chaos

I have to be honest:  Barack Obama giving credit to Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos for Hillary Clinton's win in Indiana is incredibly funny.  Whether it is true or not -- and it might very well be -- it is rip-roaringly, rolling-on-the-floor-and-laughing-my-ass-off funny.

Because it is a perfect example of the chickens coming home to roost.

The idea of the open primary was the work of so-called good-government progressives seeking to increase voter turnout in the primary system (and hopefully, in the general election as well).  The idea was that if voters could have a say in either party's nominee, they might be more inclined to participate.  So they opened primaries up to all comers, regardless of party affiliation.  In some cases, states no longer have party affiliation-- you merely declare it the day of the election, and vote in that primary.  And in many cases, the goo-go progressives felt that "independents" should be able to have a say in the final choices of the parties.

The idea was stupid.

Party nominating processes are not designed to be "democratic".  They are about selecting nominees for the general election.  In an ideal world, the nominees coming out of each party would represent the broadest faction of that party:  its ideals, its hopes and dreams, its values, and its beliefs.  In most cases, the candidate would represent the comprimise between the different wings of each party.  Primary systems and caucuses only arose after the frustration of the "smoking room" scenarios that dominated in the first half of the century.  The primary system in use today was a move toward a less corrupt and more inclusive process.  But the goal was not be purely democratic.

One must keep in mind that in the United States, voters "self affiliate" with the part of their choice, or choose not to affiliate at all. The party system in the US is one of the purest notions of the freedom of speech and assembly:  citizens coming together for common purpose to petition their government.  Imagine if Methodists were allowed to select the Pope.  Or, atheists, for that matter.  How crazy would that be?

Why are open primaries any less crazy?

Election judges cannot possibly be empowered to question the motives of why citizens may choose to vote "outside their party".  States have tried equivalents to "loyalty oaths":  if you vote in a party's primary, you agree to support the party's nominee in the general election.  But that is a basic abridgement of freedom, since no organization or power or principality should have the power to dictate how you will vote in the "important" election:  the general.

So strategies like "Operation Chaos" are the natural result in a competitive primary season where one party chooses its nominee early, and another party is brow-beating itself through a mixed-up nominating process. 

The chickens have come home to roost.