“The Power of the Other Candidates” Op-Ed in Los Angeles Times
September 29th, 2008The Los Angeles Times of September 29 has this op-ed by pollster Doug Schoen about the minor party and independent presidential candidates this year. Thanks to Professor David Gillespie for the link.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:42 am
“spoiler” — blame the other choices because people don’t want to vote for your candidate!?! When was the last time the number of people who stayed home on Election Day did not exceed the number of votes received by the person who got elected? Their candidates can’t get the voters off the couch (even with absentee ballots and early voting) yet it is the other candidates fault they lost???????? What was the percentage of people old enough to vote (not necessarily registered to vote) who stayed home in 2000? Yet Nader elected Bush????
September 29th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Spoilers are a consequence of plurality elections. It’s odd that the press never seems to mention this, and never suggests that the states should use some other election mechanism for choosing their electors.
September 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Arthur DiBianca is exactly correct. Don’t make any changes, just keep blaming candidates who choose to exercise their rights, as well as the people who want to exercise theirs by voting for them.
Doug Schoen should be ashamed of himself for purveying the same tired & offensive cliches, especially the hated S-word, about third party candidates. Phrases like “stealing 8%” are just grotesque. The only stealing going on is what was revealed so artfully by Greg Palast and others in the 2006 documentary “American Blackout”.
September 29th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Perhaps I am cycnical, but I have realized that there are many in roles of authority who do not want the best way used to obtain candidates. Out of 10 Elephant candidates, the best three were Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, and Ron Paul (not put in any particular order). Any of the three would have protected the borders and upheld the Constitution at a vast percentage higher than the other 7 combined. But no, the well-known talkshow hosts gathered behind Fred and Rudy (with the exception of Laura Ingraham, who backed Hunter from the beginning). Back to the point, if parties really wanted the people to choose, they would do their primaries region by region and they would allow the voters to rank their preferences instead of picking one. The current method is designed specifically for one person to win running away so that there is no question as to who won the delegate count (at least on the elephant side). I prefer that we either have the IRV method or the approve/disapprove method. [Someone can explain that much better than I can, but basically in both you are much more likely to finish with a candidate of your liking.] So the people whining about third candidates can stop complaining and put their efforts behind a different voting method. Those backing the two-party system are probably happy with their current choice of picking between Cheez-its and Cheese Nips.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Also, the process of two in a debate must be scrapped as well. On Friday the two candidates with the same over-arching desire for our country were not able to show evidence of knowing the difference between a plan and a goal. We heard their plans to great jobs, rebuild economies, and create jobs. Gents, those are not plans; those are goals. The best one of the night is when the Illinois Senator said, “We need to rebuild Georgia’s economy.” Whoa! Are there any other countries that would like to sign up for rebuilding? We’re the U.S. and we’re here to help you.
September 29th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
My new one-liner on this is, “Small party and independent candidates don’t spoil elections, plurality voting methods do.” Arthur DiBianca notes, It’s odd that the press never seems to mention this. To solve that problem, we need to build support for local electoral reform in enough communities that the press can’t ignore it any more.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
The bourgeois, establishment, news media is comfortable with the two-party oligarchy so they do not want to see any changes to that. However, if the Republican Party becomes a minor-sized party by the year 2012 (as I have been saying and writing for the past few years), the game will then be a very different one.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Phil: They are already a minor-sized party in most large American cities, particularly your nation’s capital, where they are third in size behind the D.C. Statehood Green Party.
September 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
So the election does not manufacture enough Electoral votes for a clear cut winner. The Supreme Court will choose the President again. I wonder when the U.S. House of Representatives will wake up. The old, now invalid, Constitution gave the prerogative to the House, not the U.S. Supreme Court. If a 6% vote for other candidates denied a victory to either tired old party candidate. then let the House decide. Read up on the interesting way that vote would be decided in the House. Intriguing.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Thank you, David. That is very good news!