It has been encouraging seeing all the new voters (especially the young, often first-time voters) brought into the process by the “outsiders” who have created a new election dynamic.

This is not what is putting an end to the two major parties – it is their own self-serving demands to control the systems by which elections operate and that they have unashamedly created. Following the embarrassing and disastrous conventions of the Republican Party in 1964 and 1976 and the Democratic Party in 1968 and 1972, politics shifted behind the scenes.

Democrats have the control of nominees because of their superdelegates; Republicans by the central committee’s purse strings, doled out to the obedient.

The Republican Party has allowed money to drive its process and lost its core power base that is needed in a brokered convention.

Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, money has crept into the Democratic Party, but the superdelegates who can and do override the voter choices are the ultimate betrayal of the open political process.

Having been young once and “taken on the system,” my heart is with the new generation of voters. Though seeing the youthful potential political energy lost is heartbreaking, that they cannot be bought gives me hope.

Loretta M. Turner

Biddeford

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