OPEN PARTY/CLOSED PARTY-- DEMOCRATS vs REPUBLICANS

Despite the Harold Fords, Al Wynns and the Liebermen types, the Inside the Beltway Hillary campaign crowd, the consultants and the DLC-Republican-lite careerists, Democrats are, at heart, a bottom-up grassroots party that thrives on real participation from actual living, nreathing human beings. By joyfully dumping Terry McAuliffe as head of the DNC and embracing Howard Dean, the heart and soul of the Democratic Party moved back towards what makes the Democratic Party viable-- and different from the inherently elitist and closed GOP.

Yesterday the Republican National Committee tried playing a little catch up by authorizing the CRP (California Republican Party, formerly called RPC, Republican Party of California; someone must prefer the CRP acronym which, I'm sure, you can imagine is being pronounced with much glee everywhere) to allow independents to vote in their primary. The Democrats already permit and encourage registered independents and decline-to-state voters to join in and help Democrats pick their candidates.

Yesterday's San Diego Union-Tribune speculates that, despite the rule change allowance from up top, the Republicans here in California are unlikely to embrace the whole openness concept. It runs counter to their very nature. Schwarzenegger, who they tolerate-- he is the governor-- voted at CRP's board of directors meeting to open it up. But the proposal lost 11-9 as the arch-reactionaries, like Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman (Tustin) and Assembly GOP leader Mike Villines (Clovis), dug in their heals and refused to budge. The far right of the GOP "are adamant that only Republicans should have a say in choosing the Republican presidential nominee. Others believe the party is being institutionally shortsighted by excluding the fastest-growing voting group, 19 percent, when Democrats welcome them."

The Schwarzenegger faction, a decided minority, will bring it up again at the Republican state convention this September in Indian Wells but it is expected to be soundly defeated since the delegates are overwhelmingly among the most extremist members of the state party.