Primaries to prevent Idiocy

By Fester: 

Ideally, politicians would not need federal indictments or the threat of losing their seat to be personally non-corrupt, but politicians are people and people are absolutely stunning in their ability to rationalize and self-justify almost any behavior. Furthermore, there is a steady stream of opportunity for personal graft. So it is necessary for counter-vailing forces to push back against the incentives towards corruption and self-dealing.

I am a firm believer in the value of primary elections, especially for Democrats as the Republican Party looks like it will be spending at least a couple electoral cycles in a very nasty circular firing squad as the theo-cons duke it out with the money-cons and the debate is between the beer halls, Sam’s Club and country-club Republicanisms. The GOP will be able to take out the most idiotic and vulnerable House Democrats such as Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fl) but the electoral incentive to behave will not be a significant nor credible threat in the general election.

A few weeks ago, I wrote that it will be the job of progressives and open government/good government types of all ideologies to create strong pressures to prevent complete douchebaggery because there will not be a strong internal caucus incentive for self-policing. The Republicans will be shut out of power so they won’t be able to market their access to power while Democrats will be fighting a tug-of-war with significant factions being ensconced and insulated from electoral consequences. We’ll see behaviors as outrageous as the $90,000 block of ‘alleged’ cash found in Rep. Jefferson’s freezer and working down the outrageous list, behaviors similar to Rep. Rangel’s rent deal in Manhatten.

Credible threats of prosecution are severely lagging indicators as a good lawyer and a non-drunk political strategist can drag the motions through for at least one electoral cycle. Competently run primary challenges against a quasi-random sample of the most egregious offenders in 2010 should provide a decent deterrent while producing positive partisan externalities as bad behavior by a small group of Democrats can be used to tar the entire brand, much like the behaviors of Sen. Stevens, Rep. Young and a few other GOP representatives have marginally contributed to the Republican problems over the past two cycles.