Tuesday is primary election day, and there are full ballots all over the state.

Of course, you can only vote on one party’s ballot. That’s because, despite the Progressive Era reform of primary elections replacing smoke-filled rooms (actually room, since the Republican Party was dominant in Wisconsin at the turn of the 20th century), voters cannot, for instance, vote for a Democratic candidate in the 17th Senate District and a Republican candidate in the Third Congressional District. That proves that the primary election is still about the parties and not the voters.

It remains similarly wrong that candidates for sheriff and other county elected positions have Ds or Rs after their name. In three counties in the great Southwest, there are candidates for sheriff only on the Republican ticket while the aforementioned 17th Senate District Democratic primary is taking place. As I’ve argued here before, county elected positions should not be partisan positions. The Milwaukee County Democratic district attorney’s John Doe partisan witchhunt demonstrates that you cannot trust partisan elected officials to do the right thing when partisan politics is concerned.

Making the sheriff position nonpartisan would end the charade of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke as a Democrat in Name Only. The Democratic Party used to have, well, more conservative members, but Wisconsin Democrats have shunned from their numbers anyone who doesn’t support 100-percent tax rates on business, gun confiscation and taxpayer-funded abortion on demand.

Those who claim Clarke is lying about his party membership should really blame the governor who appointed him sheriff. That would be Gov. James Doyle, who is no one’s idea of a Republican. As it is, whether Clarke is a Democrat, DINO or anything else, he stands out because he lacks the blame-the-victim-or-society mindset of Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and his police chief, Ed Flynn, and unlike those two Clarke actually believes in constitutional rights, to wit Milwaukee County citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

Of the Democrats I’m aware of running Tuesday, Clarke is the only one I would vote for. (I didn’t, since I don’t live in Milwaukee County.) Two of the three running for attorney general, Milwaukee County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and Jefferson County District Attorney Susan Happ, don’t deserve the jobs they currently have. Happ gives sweetheart deals to multiple-offense drunk drivers. Ozanne has enacted the same catch-and-release law “enforcement” that has made Milwaukee such a wonderful place to live. (Not.) Happ, Ozanne and Rep. Jon Richards (D-Milwaukee) all said in a most illuminating Isthmus story the laws they wouldn’t enforce as attorney general because they don’t agree with the law. (Richards appears confused about the difference between making the law, which he now does as a member of the Assembly, and enforcing the law, which is what attorneys general and district attorneys are supposed to do.)

There is one interesting Democratic Senate primary, in the aforementioned 17th District to replace Republican-When-It-Suits-Me Sen. Dale Schultz. (Who, as I’ve said here before, deserves credit for pulling off the feat of voting against Republican initiatives that pass anyway.) The first candidate, chronologically speaking, was former Wisconsin Department of Transportation employee Ernie Wittwer, who excited the Democratic state leadership so much that they recruited a younger, more photogenic candidate, Pat Bomhack, despite the fact that Bomhack lost the only election he’s run in before, the 51st Assembly District Democratic primary two years ago, and initially announced he was running in the 51st. (The winner of that 2012 primary went on to lose to Rep. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), whose announcement he was running for Schultz’s seat helped push Schultz out the door.)

Democrats in the 17th have been writing letters to newspapers supporting Wittwer, not Bomhack, including the candidate who beat Bomhack but lost to Marklein. One assumes the Democrats will dutifully march behind Bomhack after he probably wins tomorrow, since Democrats abdicated fiscal responsibility of any sort once U.S. Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) retired, but as a non-Democrat it’s been fun to watch that race. I have yet to see any substantive difference between the two; Wittwer spewed hatred of Gov. Scott Walker and Republicans not named Schultz, though with a pleasant demeanor.

Those who plan to vote in Democratic primaries should ask themselves which candidate will tell state Democratic Party leadership where they can go in the most unpleasant way possible. Democrats forfeited their right to lead this state because of Doyle’s grotesque mismanagement of the late 2000s, and Democrats’ refusal to admit anything was wrong, or that employees of government might need to pay for their benefits as the people paying their salaries have to do (for much lower quality benefits).

There is one interesting Republican Senate primary, in southeast Wisconsin’s 21st Senate District, between former Sen. Van Wangaard and Jonathan Stietz. The primary campaign has focused on two issues — which is the true conservative (a term that depends on whom you ask, of course), and whose backers are more obnoxious. I don’t live in that district either, but Republicans’ fear should be that one side’s backers have alienated the other side’s backers so much that the latter’s failure to vote will deliver the Senate district to the Democrat despite the district reportedly being Republican-leaning.

As with all primaries, one of the two most important criteria is who is most likely to win in November. The other is whose views are closest to yours.

Along that line, the only state treasurer candidate who deserves your vote is Matt Adamczyk, because he is campaigning to eliminate the office, unlike the other candidate, Randy Melchert, who I would have voted for otherwise. Neither of the candidates for secretary of state, former Rep. Garey Bies (R-Sister Bay) or Julian Bradley of La Crosse, want to eliminate the office. The way of thinking of those two and Melchert gets us such mediocrities as former treasurer Dawn Marie Sass, the Democratic candidate with this stupid idea, and current secretary of state Douglas La Follette, who should have been recalled instead of Walker. There are approximately 5.5 million reasons to get rid of those two offices.

There are two interesting Republican Congressional primaries. The first is in the Sixth Congressional District, where I used to live, to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac). The winner is likely to be one of three legislators, Rep. Duey Strobel (R-Cedarburg) or Sens. Joe Leibham (R-Sheboygan) or Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend).

If I lived in the district, I would vote for Leibham. I don’t know much about Strobel. I do know a fair amount about Grothman, who is either so popular or in a Senate district so safe that an Act 10-inspired recall effort against Grothman failed to get enough signatures. I enjoy seeing how the mere mention of Grothman’s name turns Democrats into spittle-flinging obscenity-shouting maniacs. Grothman would be fun to watch in Congress, but Leibham is more likely to get elected to Congress since there are some Democratic pockets in the Sixth.

The other interesting Congressional primary is where I do live, in the Third Congressional District. One of the Republican candidates couldn’t be bothered to explore the southern end of the district she would represent, so your choice is between Army veteran Tony Kurtz and contractor Ken Van Doren.

I voted for Van Doren, who is probably the most libertarian Republican in this state, largely because I believe the Republican Party (of which I am not a member, I remind you) needs to be more libertarian. I would vote for Kurtz, whose GOP inspiration is Ronald Reagan, in November if he wins Tuesday.

Those who get to vote in Legislature or Congressional primaries need to remember that the offices they are voting for make more money by themselves than the vast majority of Wisconsin families. (State legislators make almost $50,000 per year, the secretary of state and state treasurer are paid nearly $70,000 per year, and you can multiply that by almost three for Congressional pay. Given those outsized salaries compared with the real world, you have the right to demand that candidates do what you want them to do.