republicans have gotten too weird

@ShadowWorker Not to belabor the point, but my interpretation is somewhat different. I was a registered independent until I moved to NJ and when I discovered that to vote in a primary, I had to declare either dem or rep, I chose dem, because through the years, the dems seem to have been more inclusive and less divisive.

@samueltyler2 I used to have to do the same here in California for primaries, and would flip-flop on my party registration depending upon the candidates in key campaigns where my vote would matter and there was a candidate I definitely preferred. California solved that by going to the open primary where you can vote across the entire spectrum, which over-all is better IMHO but has the downsides of making it far more difficult for any "third party" candidate to make the general election and you sometimes wind up with two from the same party as the finalists in the general election. The bigger question is why the taxpayers should be paying for party primaries at all, but it is preferable to the historical smoke-filled backrooms where the special interests used to pick the party candidates.

@dancingtongue is that what happened in Alaska, 2 Republicans on the ballot?

@samueltyler2 Correct. Under Alaska's open primary system, the top four vote getters advance to the general election which is a little more "open" to lesser known and smaller party candidates, particularly given their population contrasted to California where only the top two make it which practically guarantees they will be the two major parties, or only one of the two major parties.