Outsider's view: Michigan's party conventions
normalizing upsets and upsetting the normals
Almost every Michigander is both blissfully ignorant and an oblivious victim of their state’s primary election system, because a quirk in Michigan law lets a tiny number of political insiders decide the candidates for most of the statewide primaries. If you like the idea of a government of, by and for We the People? Here’s some insight on this nearly uniquely Michigan process.
Three states, including Michigan, do not use a public election to choose partisan candidates for Attorney General and Secretary of State. Those decisions are instead made at political party conventions. In order to vote, a person must join a political party and spend a spring day at that party’s convention. Statistician might call that a “self selected sample,” and no legitimate political pollster would trust it.
True to both their names and reputations, Democrats allow nearly anyone to vote free of charge, and Republicans heavily restrict voting including imposing a poll tax. The overall convention turnout - in a state that’s third in the nation for public election turnout - is that less than 0.1% of Michiganders participate in these critical primaries. That extreme turnout difference is easily explained: there’s social pressure and a civic duty to vote in public elections, but the public is outright angry at both political parties. People are not merely disappointed or frustrated about the parties… they are angry at them. It should be no surprise that in a swing state like Michigan, where every vote counts, 99.9% of the public doesn’t attend a political party convention.
In that context, it should also be no surprise that the Democratic convention featured protests against Democrats, or that Republicans once called the police on their own Chairperson - who they also elected as their Secretary of State candidate at their convention! Michiganders and the entire nation should worry whether these conventions can promote candidate quality.
Regarding the convention outcomes, when all was said and done… there was a lot more said than done. From a pair of proverbial smoke filled rooms (one shown below), the Republicans picked “establishment” candidates - which is noticeably different than last time - and Democrats chose disruptors - even more so than they did last time. In the coming November general election we’ll hear an opinion from the other ten million Michiganders (not shown below).
