On the 24th of this month, Rhode Island Republicans go to the polls for primary day. In a long and often surprising election season, one thing we can count on is that the Rhode Island votes won’t matter. This is not a knock on the party, but a simple statement of fact. Romney will likely take the primary in a walk, Obama is a lock to win our deep blue state in the general, and no candidate much cares about our paltry delegate count anyway. So go ahead and vote your conscience, Republicans, because it’s pretty much all you’ve got.
This election, like all, will illustrate so much of what’s wrong with our democratic process: the pandering hysteria of campaign rhetoric, the divisiveness of wedge issues and party politics, the corrupting influence of money, the apathy of voters. The general election will bring the usual cries about the need for campaign finance reform and the abolishment of the electoral college, but let’s not overlook what the primaries teach us about the corruption, perversion, inefficiency and futility of our electoral process.
As I write this, Mitt Romney has just handily won the Illinois primary. While the overwhelming odds still point to him earning the nomination, the how and when of that are increasingly hard to answer. Challengers Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich recognize that they can’t overtake the former governor in the delegate count, and instead are campaigning to deny him the 1144 votes needed to secure victory, forcing a brokered convention. This long, slow, often surprising battle for the soul of the Republican Party has become the story of the 2012 election thus far, but it has unfortunately eclipsed the lesson to be learned about the innate ridiculousness of this entire process.
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