. . . in last month's Scientific American
Hi,
Same with Clinton.
Sorry, I misspoke. While Clinton did not, indeed, get half the popular vote in either election, he did get more votes than any of his opponents. Bush not only got less than half the vote, he got less votes than Gore. In a two person run off, Clinton may well have lost the first election (Perot voters probably going primarily republican once he was off the ballot). He probably would have won the second. In a two person race, Gore would probably have beaten Bush. Just guesses, but the numbers from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/ make it look that way.
I'd like to have the system changed to have a runoff between the two who got the most votes. Then, I think more people might actually give independents a chance, instead of thinking they would be "throwing their vote away".
Indeed, there are better ways to run an election than the way we do. However, the probability of third party candidates winning (even if the rules change) are going to be pretty slim for a long time to come. From the article I mentioned, I especially like the idea of "ranking" the candidates and then tossing out the bottom candidate till only two are left.
I would consider voting for a third party every time just to give them more legitimacy, and to raise the chances of having someone worth voting for come election year.
It's going to take a lot more than that to make third parties viable. The biggest single reform has to be campaign funding. As long as elections are bought with private funds, so long will third party candidates stand no chance. Then there is the way that everything is a "block" vote. As I've pointed out before, if 49.5% of the country is for party B and 50.5% for party A and this mix occurs on all levels, then everyone from the county dog catcher to the president of the USA will be from party A. Although party B is almost half the population, it has no representation.
Even if a third party candidate could become president, he would be an extremely ineffective president because he would have almost no support in congress. Consider how inefficient some presidents have been when the majority in one house or the other was against them, then think of what it would be like when almost the whole of both houses is against him. So, before a third party could become truly viable, the means by which we choose our representatives (both Representatives and Senators) needs to be changed.
The other possibility is for one of the two main parties to split. Don't expect that to happen. Again, because of the way we vote for representation, only a two party system will work. Both halves of a split party would initially be weaker than the party that didn't split. Eventually, one of the two fragments would become the second main party and the other would fade into indifference. But in the meanwhile, a lot of politicians would have had to put their principles ahead of their desire for office. Frankly, I don't see it happening. Then again, I don't see any reforms happening, since those in power have a strong reason to fight change. They're at the top of the food chain under the present system, any change can only hurt them since they've got no way to go but down.
--Pete
Hi,
Same with Clinton.
Sorry, I misspoke. While Clinton did not, indeed, get half the popular vote in either election, he did get more votes than any of his opponents. Bush not only got less than half the vote, he got less votes than Gore. In a two person run off, Clinton may well have lost the first election (Perot voters probably going primarily republican once he was off the ballot). He probably would have won the second. In a two person race, Gore would probably have beaten Bush. Just guesses, but the numbers from http://www.uselectionatlas.org/ make it look that way.
I'd like to have the system changed to have a runoff between the two who got the most votes. Then, I think more people might actually give independents a chance, instead of thinking they would be "throwing their vote away".
Indeed, there are better ways to run an election than the way we do. However, the probability of third party candidates winning (even if the rules change) are going to be pretty slim for a long time to come. From the article I mentioned, I especially like the idea of "ranking" the candidates and then tossing out the bottom candidate till only two are left.
I would consider voting for a third party every time just to give them more legitimacy, and to raise the chances of having someone worth voting for come election year.
It's going to take a lot more than that to make third parties viable. The biggest single reform has to be campaign funding. As long as elections are bought with private funds, so long will third party candidates stand no chance. Then there is the way that everything is a "block" vote. As I've pointed out before, if 49.5% of the country is for party B and 50.5% for party A and this mix occurs on all levels, then everyone from the county dog catcher to the president of the USA will be from party A. Although party B is almost half the population, it has no representation.
Even if a third party candidate could become president, he would be an extremely ineffective president because he would have almost no support in congress. Consider how inefficient some presidents have been when the majority in one house or the other was against them, then think of what it would be like when almost the whole of both houses is against him. So, before a third party could become truly viable, the means by which we choose our representatives (both Representatives and Senators) needs to be changed.
The other possibility is for one of the two main parties to split. Don't expect that to happen. Again, because of the way we vote for representation, only a two party system will work. Both halves of a split party would initially be weaker than the party that didn't split. Eventually, one of the two fragments would become the second main party and the other would fade into indifference. But in the meanwhile, a lot of politicians would have had to put their principles ahead of their desire for office. Frankly, I don't see it happening. Then again, I don't see any reforms happening, since those in power have a strong reason to fight change. They're at the top of the food chain under the present system, any change can only hurt them since they've got no way to go but down.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?