I’m kind of on the fence about this, myself. On the one hand, it’s party business who they want to nominate for seats on the ballot in general elections so I see why the rulings are going the way they are. If a party wants to run a candidate that stands a fair chance of being disqualified, that’s between the party leadership and its voters. It’s not really the court’s job to protect voters from themselves.
On the other hand, you could make the argument that the primary candidates should at least be vetted and qualified to hold the office for which they are running so as not to disenfranchise voters, should that candidate win the nomination and only later be disqualified. Add to this my own lack of confidence that court cases could even be decided in the short time between primaries and when official ballots would be printed.
It all comes down to whether there’s even that “fair chance” Trump could or would be disqualified. The GOP either doesn’t think so, or they’re saying “prove it” with the loudest bullhorn they can find while at the same time kicking up dust and touching off culture wars to keep everyone else off-balance. It’s cynical and disingenuous to be sure but you gotta look at what they do instead of what they say. They’re playing HARD for this, harder than the stakes might suggest, and you have to wonder why.
None of the ways through this quagmire are clean anymore. Never were. Gonna be a rough election.
I’m kind of on the fence about this, myself. On the one hand, it’s party business who they want to nominate for seats on the ballot in general elections so I see why the rulings are going the way they are. If a party wants to run a candidate that stands a fair chance of being disqualified, that’s between the party leadership and its voters. It’s not really the court’s job to protect voters from themselves.
On the other hand, you could make the argument that the primary candidates should at least be vetted and qualified to hold the office for which they are running so as not to disenfranchise voters, should that candidate win the nomination and only later be disqualified. Add to this my own lack of confidence that court cases could even be decided in the short time between primaries and when official ballots would be printed.
It all comes down to whether there’s even that “fair chance” Trump could or would be disqualified. The GOP either doesn’t think so, or they’re saying “prove it” with the loudest bullhorn they can find while at the same time kicking up dust and touching off culture wars to keep everyone else off-balance. It’s cynical and disingenuous to be sure but you gotta look at what they do instead of what they say. They’re playing HARD for this, harder than the stakes might suggest, and you have to wonder why.
None of the ways through this quagmire are clean anymore. Never were. Gonna be a rough election.