Washington, California and Louisiana are all top two primary states. This means that, after the primary, the top two candidates, irregardless of party, will be the candidates in the election itself.

We have a two party system, and setting aside the third party thing, the top two primaries means, exactly, that there may be two Dems, or Republicans, that fight the final battle, not necessarily a Dem and a Republican. This is an important point. Now, the Democrats seem to be fielding a LOT of candidates. On the Republican side, however, they tend to march in lock step and choose their candidate and maybe even two (there is no minimum or limit). The Dems, however, given their current state of internal war, are going field, probably, a minimum of 5 candidates for every job. So, the Dems are going to split their vote a minimum of 5 ways whilst the Republicans might split their vote two ways.

I think the reading probably gets this but, just in case. If the Dem vote was 1000 and it was split 5 ways that means everybody gets 200 votes. On the Republican side if their vote was the same 1000 votes and they split it only two times, they would each get 500 votes, AND the two top slots for the election. The unfortunate thing, for the Dems, is that because they have been unable to heal their internecine battle, they would lose.

I hope I am wrong on this one. I live in Washington state and I fully expect the Dems doing battle to not give an inch, insist in their "rights", and go down in a great ball of flame.

We'll see. In California, the Republicans have multiple candidates too. The open primary system has brought out a lot of nutballs who will not be getting many votes. In races where somebody has clear name-recognition the other guys have a huge uphill battle. I know that most voters do not bother to read anything at all, much less actually research all the candidates positions on issues. Sort of the ultimate expression of "representational democracy" where you elect somebody to make all the decision for you! Flip a coin and choose your winner.

Parties need to change their rules to reflect this new system. I noticed they have a lot of candidates but very few endorsements. I go by positions, party endorsements, and like to see League of Women Voters endorsements.

Turned out okay in California: Zero cases of Democrats being locked out by two Republicans topping a large field of Democrats. But this system of open primaries has some very real problems, like parties helping people run with the other party's label just to dilute the other party's votes. I think the parties will change their rules so only one candidate can run with the party label on the ballot. And that is like having no primary at all, as the party machine picks their one candidate.

In fact they kind of did this by showing party endorsements in the voter information booklet: There were lots of D and R candidates in each race, but only one party endorsement for each party.

In the governor's race Newsom (D) actually helped Cox (R), because he would rather run against a Republican than Villaraigosa (D)! Some Democrats are upset because having two Democrats run for governor (and no Republicans) might discourage Republicans from coming out to vote on the down races.

This "jungle primary" makes it all a lot more complex.

I was wrong about this. If you study the numbers, in the election, I think the really stunning thing was that even though the Dems, in some of the elections, ran a lot more candidates than the other side, there were so many of the electorate voting for the Dem side that they were able to overcome. This kinda gives one hope!

I Daryl Issa's district, Democrats got more than 50% of the votes cast. But a 50.6% to 48% victory is close: The winner in November depends entirely on voters coming out to vote. Democrats shouldn't get complacent now.

Oh Good God no.
If ever there was an argument to take the time and trouble to vote, we're livin' in it right now.

"Irregardless" is not a word. You mean, "regardless".
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i prefer the more emphatic sounding "irregardless" to the more passive sounding "regardless" ... to my tin ears of course