Kansas’ presidential primary means about as much as Vladimir Putin’s big ‘landslide’ | Opinion

They called it a “Potemkin election.”

Over the weekend, Russians went to the polls and delivered a massive — but completely expected — victory for Vladimir Putin, giving him an astounding 87% of the vote to stay in power.

The final tally was meaningless, of course. Putin sidelined or killed his biggest challengers for power. He was always going to win. So this weekend’s act of democracy was purely performative. Decorative, even.

In related news, Kansas holds its presidential primary election on Tuesday.

No, wait! I’m sorry! No one should ever suggest there are any similarities at all between Moscow’s stage-managed coronation and democracy in the Sunflower State. That’s not very nice! Obviously we’re much more free to choose our leaders than those poor Russians. For now.

But this is also true: You can choose anybody you like on Tuesday. It just won’t matter. We already know the winners.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both have already won the delegates needed to be their respective parties’ presidential nominees. They’ll win the Kansas ballots, too, in the absence of real competition.

The race is over. Which means Tuesday’s election is almost purely performative.

Decorative, even.

And that’s a shame, really. It was actually kind of exciting last year when the Legislature approved a primary election for the 2024 presidential campaign. It seemed to offer a chance for voters here to have a small-but-real say in picking our nation’s next leader.

That’s something we don’t get very often. Kansas’ Electoral College votes are so reliably Republican — we last went for a Democrat when Lyndon Johnson won the state in 1964 — that candidates mostly don’t bother to campaign here in the fall. We’re afterthoughts, at best.

So if we’re going to have any influence at all, it has to come while the parties are selecting their nominees.

For decades, Kansans — some of them — have had that say through caucuses attended mostly by party insiders and die-hard political junkies. A primary election offered the possibility of bringing more voters into the process, making it more small-d democratic.

Only it didn’t actually work out that way. The Republican and Democratic nominees have effectively been chosen already, by voters in the states that go earlier in the process. We’re afterthoughts once again.

Which means it’s time for a national primary.

Think about it: Isn’t it crazy that voters in a few states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina — should have disproportionate influence on our presidential process simply because of scheduling? Why should they get more of a voice than voters in Kansas? Or in Missouri, which holds its Democratic primary this coming Saturday?

Pity the poor voters in South Dakota, whose presidential primary isn’t until June 4.

It should be a nationwide vote. One day to determine the nominees for both parties — say, a Saturday sometime in late spring so that we don’t have to spend an entire year watching a head-to-head campaign. Every voter who wants a voice would get one.

The counterargument to this, I suppose, is that the drawn-out process lets little-known dark horse candidates build momentum if they can simply win one of the early states. Which is a “West Wing” fantasy that happened once — Jimmy Carter in 1976 — and never again after that. We don’t need to pretend anymore.

Presidential candidates are running to be president of the entire country. It’s only right that they should prove their appeal to the entire country simply to become their party’s nominee. And it would mean voters in Kansas and Missouri would get a say.

Tuesday’s vote isn’t completely meaningless. Some Never Trump Republicans are still supporting Nikki Haley to register their dissatisfaction with the former president. Similarly, Democrats unhappy with Biden’s policies in the Gaza war can cast a protest vote for some other candidate. That’s not nothing.

But I’d love — as a Kansan — someday to cast a presidential vote that made an actual difference in the outcome. A national primary would do that. Tuesday’s Potemkin election won’t.

Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle opinion correspondent. He lives in Lawrence with his wife and son. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.