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The Crossover Candidate: Did the GOP take down Cynthia McKinney? (Eli Kintisch, September 23, 2002, American Prospect)

[W]hite voters turned out at rates as high as 65 percent of registered voters, and in many areas they went eight- or nine-to-one for Majette. McKinney still might have won if she had hung on to nearly all of the black vote, but she didn't. Still, it would be a mistake to attribute McKinney's defeat either to a new politics of racial polarization or to the influence of outsiders. In the past, before expressing highly controversial views on volatile topics, McKinney had won enough white support to give her comfortable margins. In the end, McKinney lost because she gave her opponents plenty of grist. And though she was new and inexperienced, Majette won because she presented a competent alternative to McKinney, and because she benefited from a stealth Republican campaign. (McKinney got that part right.)

While diehard McKinney supporters may blame her defeat on the influence of outsiders, the lesson of all this seems to be a much simpler one: Regardless of race, candidates in closely divided seats would be wise to try to represent their entire districts.

The two major political parties should take back control of the primary process, letting only those who are actually registered party members determine their candidates. Perhaps they could only allow folks to vote in a primary if they were registered members of the party the last time they cast a vote in the general. Among other advantages, this should serve to drive up party membership. This would require alterations to some state laws, but between them they run the states, right? Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2002 1:46 PM