chaper 8

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Professor
Course
Date
Political Parties
The purpose of primary elections is to determine the candidate who has the best chance of winning. The political party cannot have an appropriate platform if they do not have a face to present them. Until the candidate is selected, those contenders who are fighting for the candidacy of their parties focus on individual differences where they attack each other until the primary elections are over. Some people hate the primaries, and they insist that they dilute the parties’ message and waste resources which could be used to fight against the opposition hence lowering their chance of winning the general election.
Additionally, the primaries create partisan which later brings division within the parties. For instance, the case of the 2008 election which had different kinds of Democrats created by Obama and Clinton who were the candidates of the primary elections (Political Parties 220). Obama made appeals to the middle-class while Clinton performed best among the upper middle class. Also, the Republican primaries of 2014 were faced with divisions of the radicals and the moderates (Political Parties 222).
Moreover, if there are low turnouts in a primary election and the chosen candidate is not accepted by the voters, it may lead to a wave election. Majorly, this is a situation where the voters are involved in demonstrations of dissatisfaction with their party leading to a ‘wave’ of support for the opposition party (Political Parties 217).

Additionally, if the candidates in the primaries had different cultural and economic interests, loss of one of the candidate may lead to changing points of view and mixed beliefs in the party among the supporters. Primaries may also lead to the formulation of undesired policies by the winning candidate which may oppress the losing candidate.

Work Cited
Gov. “Political Parties.” People and Politics, pp. 205-232. (Attached)