More confusion from the sidelines

Not for the first time do I note my amazement that US and Canadian political parties allow their relevant electoral authorities to interfere with internal party matters.

In my experience elsewhere parties regard themselves as private organizations and jealously guard their internal machinery, especially leadership and candidate selection.

Still, that oversight has developed suggests some advantage, somewhere along the line. Politicians don’t give up their perks that easily.

But not only do we have this oversight situation, it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. That is, rather than a Federal body overseeing one set of rules you have state bodies and a bewildering range of variants.

Just this week we’ve seen a few of these anomalies:

U.S. Rep. Bob Ney jumps ship under a corruption cloud but his anointed successor, Joy Padgett, might not be eligible under the ‘sour-grapes’ rule. That is, she had already lost a primary this year and in Ohio that means she cannot run.

Contrast that with Joe Lieberman who on the same day he lost his primary announced that he would run as an independent. The irony is Padgett’s case is clearly that the next choice should take up the vacant spot. For Lieberman the move is unadulterated sour grapes. He gets, allegedly, the nod from the President’s inner circle and Padgett is left fighting a rinky-dink state administration.

I guess, from my observations, it doesn’t really matter who sets the rules for these selection processes, the parties or electoral authorities; either way systems can just as easily be abused as honoured.

If there is cause for concern it is in the inconsistencies and confusion arising from so many differing sets of rules. Surely the rules pertaining to Federal electoral matters should be consistent, under one Federal body.

The States can, and will do their own thing, and there is no argument there, but imposing regional or state idiosyncrasies onto the Federal system must open up vast opportunities for abuse.

BTW: Taking up Lew Scannon’s sound advice, the comment moderation is back on. It seems I’ve just encouraged the spamming arseholes to start flooding the site. It’s easier to just reject them from the email notification.