Yeah, I kind of agree here. I think we should have a "playoff" system where candidates could pick a party for advertising purposes, but otherwise compete on an open playing field with all other candidates.

Here's how I'd like it to work:

• ban all political ads, outside of informing when the next debate or rally will happen
• all debates are funded with tax-payer dollars
• for House seats, vote by party for the general election, and Reps would be elected proportionally and based on primary votes
• Senate seats work as they currently do, except for the voting system change below
• all votes are some kind of IRV system, e.g. ranked choice, approval, etc
• there would be a vote after each primary debate (should have 3-5 of those), and if you don't participate, your previous votes carry forward through the primary process; candidates are eliminated if they go under some threshold; you could straight-ticket this, but it would weight all candidates from your party equally

This probably needs to be refined, but I think the general approach is worth discussing.