I posted this a week ago. Ive been thinking about it some more since, and I have come to the conclusion that until we insist on a majority vote to seat a candidate (or a slate of electors - the Electoral College is a discussion for another day), it will be impossible for a strong third party (or third and fourth, which would actually be desirable) to develop. There is too much to lose if one chooses to vote for the third party candidate in a general election, as it almost always (if not always always) pulls ones vote away from other candidate that you would have voted for otherwise, and therefore boosts the probably of the candidate that you for sure oppose being seated on a plurality. If a majority is required to seat, then there is nothing to lose in voting for the third party candidate the first time around, and sooner or later (probably sooner, under 50%+1 to seat), there be will be either a Republican OR a Democrat versus a third party candidate in the runoff election that will determine the winner. And when that begins to happen, sooner or later that third party candidate is going to be seated, which is the first step (of many more) to a day when no party holds a majority in Congress. The Republicans and Democrats have a symbiotic relationship. With few exceptions, they are playing their game by the rules they define, and the purpose of the game is to re-elect incumbents and thus preserve their status, power, and privilege. John McCain is the poster boy. This relationship is detrimental to this country and it will not be broken as long as we continue to seat candidates on plurality votes. 40% of the Presidential elections from 1824 to present have resulted in the President being been seated on a plurality of the popular vote at the State level (popular vote data is not available prior to 1824). Comprehend this: the guy that most people voted AGAINST ended up in the White House 40% of the time. Obama is not one of them, strangely enough, so this isnt sour grapes about that. This also happens quite often in State and local elections. Think about it, and think about how things would go in Congress if we had three or more parties represented there, none of which held a majority (or even none of which held a supermajority). It would require that coalitions be formed in order to pass legislation, and the arguments would have to be made on merit to convince others to go along. What a concept. The founding fathers did not want a two-party system, and Im only recently beginning to really understand why.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:53:13 +0000
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