Primary Colors

After her thinking that the presidential primary was in November, I believed that Brittany had been steered correctly in her understanding of American party politics. But, as is so often the case, I underestimated her ignorance.

On Monday I was discussing with Brittany the debate I had heard on NPR between two Democratic candidates for county commissioner (sadly they were both unable to put together a coherent sentence). I stated my belief that neither seemed worth voting for when Brittany replied that she hadn;t paid any attention to any of the races and so was just going to vote for "the Democrat" come Tuesday. When I said that since it's a primary we're voting between two Democrats she gave her patented blank stare.

Now primaries are odd things, the rules seem to be different wherever you are, as I am learning during this year's presidential campaign, but the basic idea is always the same: choosing who will represent a particular party in a general election. My vote has never really mattered before in a presidential election, but in the past I lived in areas so heavily partisan that only the primary mattered for local positions.