When it comes to primaries, I'd rather have a beer

Firstly, I would like to talk about the effects of primaries on the voter. A University of Kentucky study called Voting in Primaries: The Impact of Intra- and Inter-Party Competition analyzed the effects of party competition with relation to voter turnout in the primaries, and also the general election. My focus here will be on the primaries. They concluded that “citizens are most motivated to vote when the potential stakes of voting are highest.” A very competitive party primary will yield the most amount of voters, and being a democracy we can say that high voter turnout is a good thing. Also, the study concluded that voting is primaries will be likely when the primary winner has a greater probability of winning the general election. Voters will turnout to the primary if they feel that the general election is actually the party primary due to weak inter-party competition in that state/county etc. So are primaries good or bad for the voter? It’s true that primaries take the power away from the party bosses, but in a primary where there is little intra-party competition primaries could be bad for the voter. Little intra-party competition yields a low voter turnout, and thus gives more power back to the party bosses who support a candidate. In primaries where there is a large amount of competition primaries are good for the voter. Primaries with little competition are bad for the voter because they take the power out of the voter’s hands.

http://www.jstor.org/view/00434078/ap020168/02a00060/0?currentResult=00434078%2bap020168%2b02a00060%2b0%2cFF03&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D26%26gw%3Djtx%26jtxsi%3D26%26jcpsi%3D1%26artsi%3D1%26Query%3Dprimaries%26wc%3Don

Are primaries good or bad for democracy? First of all, any institution that puts power into many as opposed to a few is a good thing. Also, the advent of the idea of a candidate as an organization helps to increase the amount of competition in a primary. When a candidate does not have to rely on party funding or even party support to win a primary competition in primaries will rise thus increasing the efficacy of democracy. Candidate centered democracy is a good thing for democracy. In the eyes of the founders it certainly is a good thing because it reduces the probability of a faction rising to power, and thus spreading the idea of democracy.

Are primaries good or bad for the party? My quick answer is going to be that they are bad. If we look at the definition of a party it is a group of people gathering together to win elections. Candidate centered politics has started to dominate the party scene, and thus diminishing the power of the party. Since we no longer have informal/ caucus meetings the power has turned more to the people. This gives a candidate the chance to skew from the beliefs of the party and still win the primary election. We see a push to the center or moderate and this makes parties change there beliefs so they can win elections. Primaries certainly have an affect on parties, but we can see an inverse relationship where as the party power decreases with the use of primaries the effects of democracy start to take hold which I ultimately think is a good thing.