Primary fever: catch it! [a]

Sunday night my roomie said something that incited much more thinking than I like to do on a Sunday night. To paraphrase, 'You know Huckabee wants to eliminate income tax and institute a fair tax?' He proceeded to discuss the criteria and implications of such a policy in contrast to that status quo. Why did this - combined with the return of American Gladiators - make my night? It's been a long time since I've heard a qualified political opinion*. That is, he presented and issue and provided analysis for both sides of the fence. There was scant further mention of Huckabee and no mention of any other candidate. It was a clean, focused discussion that avoided all the pitfalls associated with such topics.

Sure I'll give my friend a little credit, but more importantly I have to thank the wonderous event we call the primaries. Or, more hilariously, the caucuses. What's so special about this part of the election cycle? There's no need for partisanship, and this is awesome for two reasons.

Reason One: You have to choose a candidate to support. Once nominations have been made everyone will gravitate to their party's respective figurehead and can go to the November polls without he faintest idea of their candidate's platform. But during primaries the parties' unified strategy is (ostensibly) not yet conceived. That means to achieve any semblance of an opinion - which people love to have - some amount of research must be done.

Reason Two: There are more than two candidates. That means I don't have to hear the 'Anyone but Bush' argument ad nauseum. Granted voting against someone in a bipartisan system is a perfectly valid motivation, it makes for dry political discussion. Discussing the opposite candidates weaknesses incites negativity and personal attacks rather than positive endorsement of a candidate's platform. Also, the mudslinging is greatly reduced in primaries as there are many targets.

And then there's the self-examination that comes with primaries. For a brief moment the voter is made shockingly aware that there are differing opinions within each party. As soon as a president is elected the winning party aligns itself with him in every way and suddenly the party that champions civil rights becomes complicit with warrentless wiretapping. But on the trail to the caucuses each party's values and strategies are no longer monolithic creed of the registered partymember.

* There are a few people I routinely discuss social issues with that I'm ignoring here. But they're forgettable people anyway. Oh and there's another individual that always gets off to a good start on political discussions but lapses into partisanship and ad hominem, in no small way on account of his beverage selection.