April 23, 2008 5:21 PM

Primaries Are A Good Thing

From the Primaries Are a Good Thing Department comes this dispatch from The Politico:

Rep. Leonard L. Boswell (D-Iowa) has a voting record that makes many liberal activists frown. A Blue Dog Democrat, he initially supported the Iraq war, voted for the Patriot Act, supports gun rights, has been an advocate of free trade and has one of the more conservative voting records of any Democratic congressman. And now he will be facing a credible, self-described progressive Democratic opponent in former state Rep. Ed Fallon, who actually carried the district in his gubernatorial bid in 2006.

I'm one of those guys who thinks the more democracy and the more contested elections, the better. That's a controversial belief to hold in American politics these days. Even in some progressive circles, the tendency is to worship power and incumbency, because we are living in an age of extreme partisanship. And by that I mean so much political organizing is around candidates by virtue of what letter - R or D - they have behind their name, rather than around issues.

Interestingly, a sitting U.S. Senator went on record and said he agreed with this analysis in my upcoming book, The Uprising. It was, in fact, the first time I had ever heard an incumbent endorse the concept of primaries against his own colleagues. That is one of the many newsy nuggets in the book.

So again, whoever you are for in this Iowa race (or any other), I'd say we should all look at contested primaries as a good thing, because that's democracy at work.