That damned closed primary system and its penchant for drawing conservatives to the polls!
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter fixed blame for John McCain's newfound conservative streak and abandonment of the "maverick" status that drove the media gaga back in 2000 -- when he was a challenger on George Bush's left on taxes and campaign finance reform -- on the strong Senate primary challenge the senator is receiving from his right in former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.
In an April 23 The Gaggle blog post, Alter scolded McCain for being "willing to deport all of his principles" but found a way to lay the blame on the electoral system in Arizona:
It would serve McCain right if he sold his soul and lost anyway.
It's sad that it has come to this. The culprit isn't McCain but the awful primary system we have in this country. Prop 14 in California, on the ballot in June, would replace the party primaries with a "top two" primary where the top two finishers in the first round square off in November regardless of party. This would take primaries away from extremists in both parties and help restore the center. If Arizona had that system, John McCain would never have had to repudiate everything he spent 25 years building.
