How about a different method to elect our presidents?

This is a reply to “Democracy doubted at home” by Doug Thompson (Sept. 24). We are a republic, not a democracy. Yet, one by one we have eliminated the safeguards that prevented our being the republic they envisaged. The last and most casually removed was installation of popular presidential primaries that has quite obviously destroyed the role of parties. Mediation of strong ideas can take place in the parties. In the sense that parties can exercise mediation within, they strengthen the notion that we should remain a republic. I agree with Thompson that our presidential primaries have become a problem.

However, our biggest problem is the present system looks as if it has been designed to maximize control by money. Candidates start running several years before the election. They are aided by funding devices cleverly designed by Congress. Our formal primaries start 11 months before the election in several small states not representative of the country at large. The media makes so much ado about the outcome of these small states that better candidates may drop out. Money is extremely important in these small states. Whether any other states subsequently have a say in choice of candidates depends on when they hold their primaries. States like Arkansas frequently have no effective say at all. Finally, there is the problem of the party conventions that, with popular primaries, have become a regrettable and highly controlled charade. With our primary system, people have little control over who becomes president. Thompson has offered a way to control this that harkens back to the original system, which eschewed parties. He suggests the top two vote-getters in primaries become the candidates for president and vice president in the general election regardless of party. This idea keeps the worst aspect of the present system in place, the control by money. It also underplays the role of parties. Parties can and do represent general ideologies for voters to have an informed, general choice. For debate, I suggest another a plan: Hold party conventions in June of the election year and choose delegates in May. The conventions would advance three candidates for president. In July, three national debates would be held for each party with a national primary vote to take place in early August and a run-off, if needed, in late August. In early September, we could then have three or four national debates between the candidates of the two parties. I suggest that this system would go far in undermining the role of money. Further, as it evolved, each party would eventually find the wisdom of advancing candidates who represented the extremes and middle of their ideologies. Finally, the primary would be national.

Everyone who presents new ideas suffers a little from not seeing some of the problems their ideas may produce. Here, I think, newspapers could present a very interesting role, which might even invigorate their readership. Suggestions like Thompson’s and mine could become a newspaper-moderated debate, a source of reasoned criticism that might produce workable solutions but would certainly inform the readers. I recommend that role to the Democrat-Gazette.

OTTO HENRY ZINKE

Fayetteville