They own the government out there…
And THAT invites infighting among the party lawmakers to get spots…
The inter party civil war rages on stronger there the nation one accompanying Joe Biden’s march to the convention…
Before 2011, when the state replaced party primaries with a general primary after which the top two vote-getters square off in the general election, establishment-backed Democrats running in safe seats could often sail to assured victories; now, they often find themselves fighting for their political lives against a rival from their own party.
The liberal-versus-moderate dynamic in California not only presaged the rift that blew open in this year’s presidential primaries, it established its parameters: between unions and environmental activists; between single-payer advocates and Democrats working to expand coverage within the healthcare system; between educational reformers and teachers’ unions; between law enforcement and those who regard the legal system as hopelessly biased against communities of color.
California’s experience with top-two voting, rather than partisan primaries, also offers a lesson for other states that are dominated by a single party — like Democrats in Massachusetts or Republicans in Mississippi. In safe seats that would have allowed an earlier generation of Democrats to comfortably coast to victory, California now regularly sees battles between Democrats who differ on issues that otherwise would split along party lines.
Traditionally conservative interests like the oil industry and charter schools increasingly court friendly Democrats — often by contributing money to a constellation of innocuously named political action committees that then spend millions on advertising: In districts where a Democratic win looks inevitable, the thinking goes, better to boost the Democrat who’s likely to vote with you than a Republican who is likely to lose.
David Townsend, a Sacramento political consultant, said that he used to have to work to convince business-oriented groups on the wisdom of getting behind Democrats. Now that tactic has become so ingrained that Townsend said he has “a waiting list” of interested players hoping to invest in moderate Democrats.
“Year in and year out the business community, the healthcare community, the insurance community can look at all the scorecards and see where mods have been on their issues and on trying to tamp down too much regulation,” Townsend said. “We don’t have to do the sell anymore. Everyone totally gets how important the mods are.”
Top-two voting does not lack for critics in California. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy found rare common ground in mourning the demise of party primaries. Detractors say the general primary empowers interest groups and deprives voters of clear ideological choices….