Super Tuesday from the Sidelines

   Returning to the title of my blog for a moment, here is one of those situations where I feel California has a clear leg up on Colorado - the presidential primary.

   California has open primaries, where you can request any party's primary ballot. This is huge for independents because one can vote for a candidate rather than a party (isn't this what the Founders had in mind??) and do so before it is a essentially a binary choice (as it is by the time you get to the general election).

   In Colorado, by contrast, there are partisan caucuses. That means that my wife and I, along with THOUSANDS of others who feel that neither of the two major parties adequately represent us, will be standing on the sidelines this evening, watching without a voice, as 24 states commit their delegates to particular candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides.

   Now from a pure "fairness" standpoint, I have no problem with the parties restricting participation in their caucuses (in Colorado's case) and primaries to only those that are registered members of their party. HOWEVER, the reality is, sadly, that today we live in a two-party system. Though I am sure the Libertarian, Green, Reform, and Peace & Freedom parties are all backing their own presidential candidates, we hear precisely ZERO about any of them from the mainstream media.

   Plus the mainstream media's odious practice of conducting and reporting on exit poll results further restricts the choices that voters feel they really have (think of those voters, who on Election Day, finally get to leave their California jobs and make it to the polls just prior to 8PM and hear on the radio on the way over, that "Exit polls show that So and so is winning by 30%"). Afterall, who wants to vote for a loser if the contest is perceived to be over?!

   Obviously there is much more related to this topic that must be raised to present this cohesively, and I'll get there eventually(!), but these feelings are certainly starting to well up inside me again as the Super Tuesday coverage begins in earnest.