George Will Tries But Screws Up

I seldom pay attention to rightwing commentators except for David Frum, but on occasion I read George Will, who made factual mistakes in his latest column. He wrote that in 2012, Democrats “instituted a primary system under which the top two vote-getters for any office are on the November ballot, even if both are from the same party.” (Some call this system a jungle primary.) Will claimed that the system handicaps Democrats.

Will thinks the Democrats handicapped themselves. 

In fact the change happened in 2010, not 2012, and its main backers were Arnold Schwartzenegger, Dan Schnur and Abel Maldonado, Republicans. For the most part professional politicians from both parties opposed the change. It made re-election less certain. 

As a result of this measure (which I didn’t vote for at the time, my error), the Democrats soon achieved supermajorities in California. (This was helped considerably by a provision that turned redistricting over to an independent commission.) So Will is wrong on most counts, which is not unusual. George Will seems serious and honest to me; but, as one of his university professors, John Kenneth Galbraith, once said, Will was a “B” student.

(Next day: Will published an excellent column on the lunacy of making a war-mad infidel, John Bolton, a member of the government.)