Apologies to William Shakespeare; I’m not Henry the 5th, but it does feel a bit like I’m fighting the Hundred Years War. Our Idaho State Journal is packed with opinion columns that promote the views of Democrats, self-styled progressives, RINOs, and christian-mocking atheists. So here I go rushing into the breach once more. It won’t be the first war where I fought well, but lost.

Let’s lead off with a response to Mr. Jones. Yes, Mr. Jones, open primaries (OPs) really are a liberal plot. The fact that a few Republicans whose influence in the Republican Party is declining have gone on record in support of OPs does not make it less of a liberal, Democratic Party’s dream. It seems there are some types of Republicans who are willing to support an obvious liberal plot as long as they think it benefits them too.

Mr. Jones would let the Democratic Party, and the radical left camel, put their nose into the tent of the Republican Party. Just how much of the radical left camel is Mr. Jones willing to accept in the Republican Party’s tent? In spite of all the hyperbole and moaning about excluded veterans, even the Otter’s know that there is no obstruction to anyone’s right to vote in the current primary system.

Any registered Republican can vote in Republican primaries. Any registered voter is welcome to vote in our general elections. The right of a political party to define their membership criteria, like the right of the NAACP to define their standards for their membership, and promote their own affairs is part and parcel of our freedom of assembly. OPs are an assault on the right of the Republican Party’s membership to enjoy freedom of assembly.

The alarming, emotional words used by the proponents of OPs and Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) telegraph the weakness of their arguments. Mr. Jones quotes former Lt. Governor Jack Riggs as follows: “The (Republican) party apparatus has been taken over by bullies…” “They dwell on national culture war issues — villainizing librarians, doctors, teachers, traditional conservatives…” Such overstated, inflammatory hyperbole is no substitute for reasonable debate.

Furthermore, trying to make the case for OPs into a veteran’s issue is as logical as making OPs an issue for left handed school bus drivers. Both groups have “...earned the absolute right to vote in any election they so choose.” and so they all can today.

To be sure there are those who are in favor of smut in school libraries, child abortions without parental involvement, and teacher’s secretly grooming youth for a lifetime of sadness. These folks would love to influence the Republican suite of candidates in an open primary. It’s far better to let them associate with their own political party and nominate their own candidates who reflect their values. It seems that some out-of-favor republicans and the outright RINOs are so desperate to regain power that they are willing to join with the left and accelerate the transformation of Boise into Oakland and Pocatello into Portland.

If there are “bullies” running the Idaho Republican Party, sort it out Republican to Republican. It’s hardly, “…an unholy grip on power…” that requires the exorcism of OPs. And by the way, if Idaho is such a laughingstock why are two thirds of Oregon so eager to merge with Idaho?

Finally, Mr. Jones does the inevitable and conflates Open Primaries with Ranked Choice Voting as though they are a package deal. True, they are a one-two combination punch wielded by the left to stem the rising tide of those who want to make America great, but it’s one left handed jab followed by another, but different, left handed punch.

As I have carefully explained in previous columns RCV is plagued by fundamental flaws. The operation of RCV can change your ballot’s most detested candidate into your number one pick. The operation of RCV can let the votes of those who selected the weakest candidates over take your first choice candidate. Left, right, or independent, RCV is a bad idea for everyone.

But you’d never know that if all you read was Mr. Murphy’s latest column. If Mr. Murphy needs some fun in his life may I suggest he visit the Magic Kingdom. In the real world most of us take voting as a serious matter.

However, voting in an RCV election is like a gaming, horse racing event, but not in the fun way Mr. Murphy infers it to be. In RCV the starting gate moves down the track with the horses. The slowest horse drops out of the race and the starting pole positions are redone again and again over the course of the race. The fastest horse won’t always win in a RCV race. What kind of a horse race is it where the average, moderate horse is often declared the winner? That’s not like any horse race I’ve ever seen.

Oddly enough I do share one point of logic with Mr. Murphy. If the likes of Mr. Jones, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Hitchcock are proponents for RCV, then I’m certain it’s a bad idea for anyone who is interested in a voting system that reflects the actual will of the majority of Idahoans.

Which brings us to Mr. Hitchcock. Though we differ on many points I have admired Mr. Hitchcock’s scholarship over the years and his excellent use of the written word. It saddens me to see he has fallen to the point of using ad hominem language, sharing out-of-context quotes, and setting up fantasy straw men to advocate for RCV. Despite his alert mind and the clear examples I have shared in my columns he seems willfully oblivious to the way RCV treats a voter’s ballot of ranked preferences.

Mr. Hitchcock would have you believe that ranking is simply a reflection of a voter’s gentle, nuanced preference for the field of candidates. Is that reality? No, RCV can operate so as to change a voter’s low ranked ballot vote for a totally unacceptable candidate into a first-choice vote that was never the voter’s intention.

If Mr. Hitchcock actually votes in desperation for candidates he thinks are not fully qualified and just the least likely to do harm, then RCV is certainly not the system of voting for Mr. Hitchcock. If his first-choice preference is that pathetic in his opinion, then how little “preference” must he indeed have for his second choice and his even lower ranked candidates. He should fret that RCV might promote a candidate he ranked far down on his ballot into his number one vote.

To conclude — I’ve thrown myself once more into the breach of fortress folly, the fantasy land of liberals where good is evil, equal outcomes must replace equal opportunity, where equity overrules competency, and feelings trump science. I suppose Mr. Hitchcock might say it’s the outright extremist in me to challenge such overwhelming odds, but then Henry the 5th was quite the fighter too.