Nation's two-party vice leads to needless frustration

My 78-year-old father recently got on the phone to brag to his three grown daughters that he had just marked his presidential primary ballot for America's first female president.

Though not enamored of his choice, I was proud of my dad for being proud of the moment. I encouraged him to attend the Feb. 9 caucus — otherwise, his choice wouldn't count. He demurred.

"When you vote, you figure that ought to be enough," he said.

The state Democratic Party chose to ignore the desire of folks like this lifelong Democrat, who kept voting for D's even when it fell out of fashion in his north Spokane neighborhood, who has sent checks off to Democratic candidates and frets out loud whether his eldest daughter is becoming a Republican. (Don't worry, Dad. I dislike both major parties equally.)

I've been moving my presidential primary ballot gingerly around my desk as I go through my mail. Can't bring myself to vote it — I'm an independent with disdain for party politics. Can't quite throw it away — after all, this is my country, too, and this will be my president.

Anybody else frustrated with the way America is picking its top presidential contenders?

People talk about our "two-party system." Really, it's a two-party habit — no, more like a vice that we should have given up long ago.

The two-party template especially doesn't fit the sensibility of independent-leaning Washingtonians. We're so independent that two years ago, voters embraced a switch to a state primary that advanced the top-two vote-getters without regard to their party affiliation. The state parties sued, successfully imposing a primary requiring voters to pick a party. The U.S. Supreme Court could rule as early as this week whether we are stuck with the parties' pigeonhole primary or get to have the people's way.

But back to Tuesday's presidential primary, which is a different thing altogether. Eschewing the primary, the state Democratic Party prefers instead to let the 250,000 people it alleges went to the caucuses decide delegates to the national convention. (Wake up call! That's only about 7.6 percent of the state's 3.3 million registered voters.)

Meanwhile, the state GOP is allocating only half of its convention delegates based on the primary. Front-runner John McCain seems to have sewn up that race after Mitt Romney endorsed him last week.

So, a vote won't technically make much of a difference in either party's decisions.

People should vote in Washington's primary anyway — if only to send a message. In great numbers, partisans like my dad can say loudly they want the primary, not the caucuses.

It was a palpable frustration with the caucus system in the 1980s that prompted citizens to sponsor and sign an initiative creating a state primary. Over the years, the major parties variously have tried to kill it or take the teeth out of it. This year, party leaders were successful in making sure it was late enough not to steal the thunder or — more aptly — the squeak of the Feb. 9 caucus.

Maybe my dad and droves of other Hillary Clinton supporters will send a message to still-undecided superdelegates by tipping Washington's preference away from the Barack Obamania of the caucuses. Superdelegates likely will decide the Democratic nominee in this razor-tight battle.

I've decided to send a message of my own. I'll vote for my candidate of choice, but I won't pick a party.

I want to be counted among the voters who won't be counted, who will be disenfranchised as this important, historical pivotal election unfolds.

There seems to be a good number of us, too. Of ballots already returned to county offices, about 10 percent have no party affiliation marked, according to the Secretary of State's Office. "We suspect those are protest votes," said spokeswoman Trova Heffernan.

People aren't stupid. Many of us are frustrated.

Kate Riley's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is kriley@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at seattletimes.com