In the event that this occurs, George W. Bush, in essence, would be the preferred choice of unfeigned Republicans, but John McCain would win the primary. Clearly, this type of outcome would undermine the very integrity of the election process. But another destructive force looms large. The open primary approach violates the spirit and letter of one of our fundamental rights, that being, the right to freely associate. The formation of political parties is part and parcel of this basic, constitutional principle.
Political parties exist because of legitimate variances in philosophical ideas.
A system where party members would have their election results negated by a convoluted arrangement which allows people from outside the party to choose the ultimate nominee is completely incongruent with the notion of fairness. Individuals who temporarily masquerade as Republicans with the clear intention of switching back to their Democrat Party affiliation immediately following the primary are engaged in much more than idle mischief. What we may have is a significant number of people who are willing to participate in a patently deceptive activity with the objective of sabotaging a crucial electoral procedure. The bizarre situation in which the Republican Party finds itself today is directly attributable to what may be referred to as the law of unintended consequences. The penetrating lesson is that political maneuverings offer no assurance that improvement in the system will follow merely because the word reform appears in the descriptive language of a policy change.