The liberal establishment has more power in choosing the Republican presidential candidate than the conservative base or the Tea Party movement

• The liberal, establishment media choose which Republican presidential primary candidates will be slandered - claiming awards and adulation for each scalp collected - and which will be promoted (of course, never intending to vote for their less-evil Republican in the November general election)
• The liberal, establishment media choose which issues will be considered and which will be ignored throughout the Republican primary
• The liberal, establishment media define the terms of debate for the primary
• The liberal, establishment media scalp collectors themselves exacerbate (you certainly can't claim that liberals "moderate" anything) the Republican debates
• Early primary states encourage crossover Democrats and independents to vote in their open and semi-open Republican primaries, to choose the Republican victor for those states.
• Most states are wholly irrelevant to the primary process, holding their election months after most candidates have dropped out and even after the primary winner has been declared

 
So why go through this dog and pony show in the first place? My original candidate has never once appeared on my primary ballot and my primary vote has never once affected the outcome - having been determined months prior. Why not just let The New York Times tell us who our candidate will be -- like they did in 1996 and 2008 -- and be done with it? Why this charade?
 
We'll just hold our nose, vote for the Times' preferred Republican candidate, hope that he's elected, and then pray that the elected Republican at least takes his foot off the federal budget accelerator (we can't naively think he might brake) in deference to both those conservatives who actually voted for him in November and to his conservative rhetoric during the primary -- thus delaying our inevitable Thelma and Louise moment for maybe a year or two.

Simply put, if you're not a registered Republican, you shouldn't vote in the Republican primary. End of story.
 
David Baker works in New York City and welcomes readers to his blog at eagleinnyc.wordpress.com.