New U.S. President

[jinydu]

That reminds me of an article I read once. It claimed that a two-party system is the virtually inexorable result of a winner-take-all electoral system, even in the absence of corruption and diabolical schemes from politicians. The argument went something like this (ok, I am adding some of my own thoughts):

1) In the beginning, when the electoral system is first established, there are many groups of people with competing interests. There are not enough people with the same interests to form a single group that can overpower the rest.

2) However, not all groups are exactly the same size. Some are (perhaps only slightly) larger than others. Gradually, people in the smaller groups realize that they are in the minority. Frustration builds as the electoral losses mount and the government ignores their wishes. Eventually, people in the smaller groups are torn between conscience (continuing to vote with the group) and pragmatism (searching for a more effective way to influence the elections).

3) People in the smaller groups generally have different interests from the leading parties, but these differences range from moderate to unacceptable. Pragmatists from the smaller groups decide to choose the "lesser of two (several) evils" and vote with larger groups with which they share only moderate differences, in an effort to have their voice heard and prevent the parties they truly abhor from gaining more power. This decreases the size of the small parties, making them even less influential and putting more pressure on the remaining members of the small parties to switch to larger parties.

4) Step 3 becomes a vicious cycle for small parties; eventually, only a few die-hards remain who are idealistic enough to press on in the face of losing virtually all elections. Larger parties realize this potential to gain new voters and, in an effort to gain an advantage over their large rivals, try to recruit voters leaving the smaller parties. As a result, large parties end up taking positions on different issues that are mutually irrelevant (contortions aside, there is little a priori reason why supporting the position of say the Democratic, or Republican, party on one issue should make one more likely to support the party's position on a totally different issue). The process of consolidating power in large parties continues until elections are dominated by two parties.

5) The two-party system perpetuates itself. Concerns about loss of influence dissuade voters from giving too much power to one of the parties, which would lead to a one-party system. This keeps the two parties at roughly equal strength over the long-term. The vast power of both parties (both have the support, even if only grudging, of nearly half the electorate) makes it very difficult for a third party to mount a serious challenge to the status quo. People in both parties are strongly discouraged from leaving to support a third party because the two parties are almost equally matched; leaving could tip the balance of the election in favor of the greater evil (i.e. the other major party). Furthermore, people in large parties may think "That party is so small, even if I give it my support, it has no chance of winning". Some may even think "That party has so little support and is so out of the mainstream; it must be because it takes very bad positions."

Note: This is an attempted description of why two-party systems form, not an evaluation of whether they are a good or bad thing, i.e. I'm talking about "is", not "should be".

[tha]

Originally Posted by jinydu

That reminds me of an article I read once. It claimed that a two-party system is the virtually inexorable result of a winner-take-all electoral system, even in the absence of corruption and diabolical schemes from politicians.

Every population has about 5 to 10% of political extremists, no matter how stable the country is. One of the very nice aspects of the equal representation systems is that these extremists have a large set of political parties that they consider their homes. They end up in parliament where they can be easily and accurately counted and ignored. It doesn't make sense for them to try to influence major parties. In a two party system the only way for them to exert power, which they tend to do more vigorously than moderates, is by trying to hijack one of the bigger parties.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by tha

Every population has about 5 to 10% of political extremists, no matter how stable the country is. One of the very nice aspects of the equal representation systems is that these extremists have a large set of political parties that they consider their homes. They end up in parliament where they can be easily and accurately counted and ignored. It doesn't make sense for them to try to influence major parties.

As in Israel, for instance?

Paul

[S485122]

Originally Posted by xilman

As in Israel, for instance?

Paul

If one looks at countries with proportionnal representation Israel is a special case : there are more splinter parties than anywhere else and most important the main parties refuse to compromise by forming a coalition. Other countries do not have that problem : Belgium (disregarding the recent political crisis which has other causes *), the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Austria... But true enough the case of Israel shows that no system is perfect by construction.

Jacob

* The problem in Belgium at the moment is that a nationalistic party has recently splintered, the resulting splinter parties have formed election alliances with different mainstream parties. But they negociated their alliance in a similar way as the splinter parties negociate their support in Israeli coalitions. The different mainstream parties have accepted conditions from the splinter parties they allied with before the elections they cannot compromise on anymore. In other words the mainstream parties are hostage to their preelectoral alliances, just like Israeli coalistions are hostage to the little parties they need to form a majority. I think (hope) that before the next elections the situation will normalise again.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by rogue

I haven't looked online, but I wonder what demographics she carried. I suspect women, but I don't know for certain because of what happened in Iowa.

You suspect correctly - by way of followup, here's a link to an Op-Ed by Gail Collins in today's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/10/op...10collins.html

Excerpt:

Everybody is going to have a story about why the gender gap erupted in New Hampshire, why female voters rallied to Hillary’s side after the horrendous week when she lost Iowa, was cornered in the weekend debate, told that she was unlikable on national television, and then teared up when a sympathetic voter asked her how she held up under it all. Do women Obama’s age look at him and see the popular boy who never talked to them in high school? Did they relate to Clinton’s strategy of constantly reminding her audiences that she’s been working for reform for 35 years? Barack’s not going to be able to top that unless he can prove he was an agent of change in elementary school.

My own favorite theory is that this week, Hillary was a stand-in for every woman who’s overdosed on multitasking. They grabbed at the opportunity to have kids/go back to school/start a business/become a lawyer. But there are days when they can’t meet everybody’s needs and the men in their lives — loved ones and otherwise — make them feel like failures or towers of self-involvement. And the deal is that they can either suck it up or look like a baby.

The women whose heart went out to Hillary knew that it wasn’t rational. She asked for this race, and if she was exhausted, the other candidates were, too. (John McCain is 71 and tired and nobody felt sorry for him.) The front-runner always gets ganged up on in debates. If her campaign was in shambles, it was her job to fix it or take the consequences. But for one moment, women knew just how Hillary felt, and they gave her a sympathy vote. It wasn’t a long-term commitment, just a brief strike by the sisters against their overscheduled world.

Or it could just have been a better get-out-the-vote operation.

[rogue]

I keep hearing things of this nature:

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Did they relate to Clinton’s strategy of constantly reminding her audiences that she’s been working for reform for 35 years?

but I haven't seen any proof. Outside of the health care debacle from Slick Willie's first term in office, what reform has she supported? When I mean reform, I don't mean the liberal vs. conservative notion, but the concept of working across party lines to solve a problem.

[Prime95]

she’s been working for reform for 35 years

35 years? Give me a break. She was a lawyer in the 70's and 80's - that's working for a paycheck not for reform. She was a president's wife in the 90's - Bill was working for reform - she wasn't. So let's give her due - she's been working for reform for 7 years as a senator.

[tha]

Originally Posted by xilman

As in Israel, for instance?

Paul

As in any continental European country.

[ewmayer]

Billary caught fibbing about the Iraq War resolution:

NY Times: In Defending War Vote, Clintons Contradict Record

By ERIC LIPTON
Published: January 14, 2008

WASHINGTON — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton have repeatedly invoked the name of Senator Chuck Hagel, a longtime critic of the Iraq war, as they defend Mrs. Clinton’s 2002 vote to authorize the war.

In interviews and at a recent campaign event, they have said that Mr. Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, helped draft the resolution, which they said was proof that the measure was more about urging Saddam Hussein to comply with weapons inspections, instead of authorizing combat.

Mrs. Clinton repeated the claim Sunday during an interview on “Meet the Press,” saying “Chuck Hagel, who helped to draft the resolution, said it was not a vote for war.”

“It was a vote to use the threat of force against Saddam Hussein, who never did anything without being made to do so,” Mrs. Clinton said.

But the talking point appears to misconstrue the facts.

In October 2002, Mr. Hagel had in fact been working with Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, on drafting a resolution that would have authorized the war.

But while those negotiations were under way, to the disappointment of some Congressional Democrats, the Bush administration circumvented their effort and reached a separate agreement with Representative Richard A. Gephardt, Democrat of Missouri, then the House minority leader.

That agreement resulted in a bill, sponsored in the Senate by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, now an independent, which was slightly less restrictive than the proposal that Mr. Hagel had been helping to develop.

In the original proposal Mr. Hagel had backed, force was authorized only to secure the destruction of Iraq’s unconventional weapons, not to enforce “all relevant” United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq, which was the language in the version that ultimately passed.

It was the White House proposal, not Mr. Hagel’s, that Mrs. Clinton supported, explaining in an Oct. 10, 2002, speech on the Senate floor that it was time to tell Saddam Hussein that “this is your last chance — disarm or be disarmed.”

The repeated references to Mr. Hagel by the Clintons make it clear that they are trying to distance her from the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq, by associating her with a persistent critic of the war.

Bill Clinton has raised the claim at least twice, including in an April 2007 interview on “Larry King Live” and, most recently, at a campaign event in New Hampshire just before the Democratic primary there.

“Chuck Hagel was one of the co-authors of that resolution, the only Republican Senator that always opposed the war, every day, from the get-go,” Mr. Clinton said on Jan. 7. “He authored the resolution to say that Bush could go to war only if they didn’t cooperate with the inspectors.”

A spokesman for Mr. Hagel declined on Sunday to comment about the matter.

In an interview published in GQ magazine in January 2007, Mr. Hagel said that he helped shape the course of the debate — even if it was not his resolution that ultimately passed. He said he helped convince the White House to narrow its request for authorization to go to war just to Iraq. Initially, the administration wanted Congress to approve a broad measure that would not have necessarily specified Iraq as the only target, potentially allowing action elsewhere in the Middle East.

Phil Singer, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, said Sunday that the statements by the senator and Mr. Clinton accurately reflected the role that Mr. Hagel played in the overall negotiations, even if it was not his bill that Congress voted on.

“Senator Hagel not only played a key role in drafting the 2002 authorization,” Mr. Singer said, “but has spoken about those efforts at length.”

[tallguy]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Things just got more interesting in the wake of yesterday's New Hampshire primary: Did Hillary crying a few highly televised tears the day before get her a sympathy vote, or were NH voters deliberately going out of their way to deceive the pre-primary pollsters?

I am from NH, and can't speak to whether anyone attempted to deceive anyone else, although I highly doubt it... we're not that organized.

I will say, however, that it's an interesting experience to have this much attention thrown at us over a protracted period of time -- one year plus, reaching a fever pitch over the final six weeks. I have had literally dozens of candidate minions tromp up to my house to make their pitch.

Another interesting fact that some might not know (particular in other countries), is that NH is unusual in that you don't have to register for either party -- a plurality of registered voters here, including me and my wife, are independents.

Basically, the way it works is that I walk into my polling place and say "I'd like to be a Republican please", and they hand me a Republican ballot. I vote, pass in my ballot, and go to a table they have setup near the exit and say (via a cute little highly informal form), "I've had enough of being a Republican, I've now decided I'd like to be an independent".

So.... the net effect is that which primary people decide to vote in is highly variable in each election cycle. For my wife & me, we ignore the whole darn circus (to the degree that is possible) and then make our decision the night before...

There are ample resources out there -- the candidates websites with their stated positions, video of all debates on the website of whomever sponsored them, voter guides, etc. -- to make an informed decision. Personally I think this approach makes it much easier to avoid getting overly influenced by the spinach in someone's teeth during debate #2 in July.

Ultimately, for us, the decision is made based on an amalgam of how closely the candidates align with our views, how "electable" they are, and our strategic desire to have certain candidates pushed further along in the process -- even if it isn't someone we would necessarily vote for in November.

In NH, opinion polls mean little. All that matters is who shows up on the day.

Originally Posted by S485122

This is a misconception. In most european countries there is a gradual income tax system that should have the biggest incomes pay the highest rate of taxes. But that does not work well : it has been calculated in France for instance that a couple of minimum wagers pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes (income, sales and other taxes) than a couple where both are in middle management.

Warren Buffet has a standing offer to give $1MM to anyone in the Fortune 400 richest people who can demonstrate that their effective tax rate is lower than their secretary's rate.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by tallguy

Warren Buffet has a standing offer to give $1MM to anyone in the Fortune 400 richest people who can demonstrate that their effective tax rate is lower than their secretary's rate.

You mean higher !

And to further prove his point, Buffett has challenged .. he's offered a million dollars to charity to any of the Forbes 400 richest people who can show on average that they pay a higher tax rate than their secretaries pay, but so far, Brian, he's had no takers.

Jacob