h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Not at all Arnie - I reckon we've got far too many politicians in the UK and I was wondering how the US can manage perfectly well with a fraction the number despite five times the population.

Manage? Well?!? Perfectly!?!?!?!

We have 120 MPs for 4,000,000 people in NZ and we do alright.

Maybe SWL would care to let us know the actual amount of govt officials in the US, then we could compare it to the UK.

"There are good reasons not to vote for Nader at the coming elections, and for being annoyed with him for standing, but blaming him for Bush is a bad reason.

Why is this a bad reason? Because the logical conclusion of that type of thinking is that nobody should ever stand for election who isn't a Dem or a Rep - and this is a recipe for anti-democratic, elitist politics, even worse than the current system."

This is an extremely unfair accusation. Whether you like it or not, third candidates entering a traditional two-party race with the intent of courting the dissatisfied voters of one party without any serious chance of winning themselves can only have one outcome: improving the chances of the opposition.

Here's an interesting observation. During the 2000 US Presidential election Nader's supporters cited utter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party as being their motivation for voting Nader. Fine in itself, of course, but the problem was that it became clear that many of them were upset by Bush's victory (Michael Moore being a prime example). Personally, my reading of this was as follows: many on the American left expected a Gore victory in the 2000 elections yet wanted to express their dissatisfaction with the Democrats and so made a protest vote (I call it a protest vote because I don't believe any of them thought Nader had a chance in hell of winning) which they expected wouldn't affect the overall outcome. Now, it may be that Gore should have won anyway but it also became clear that there was a lot of soul-searching from Democrats who had voted against their party from a position they thought was safe and which had turned out not to be. Some (Naomi Klein for instance) initially kept repeating the both-parties-are-the-same-so-it-doesn't-matter line for a while after the election but within a year or so it became clear that this was nonsense and this line was dropped with Naderites returning to the Democrat fold which they had clearly always been a part of.

Essentially, in an election at a national level dominated by two strong parties the vast majority of people will have a preference and the smart thing to do is to vote for that preference rather than hypocritically choose a third candidate and then complain when the preferred of the two main parties fails to win a majority. The best place for voting for third parties is at a lower level (in the US this would include the state and federal senates) where not only is there no two-horse race but a potential to build-up national support for a third party until it has a *serious chance* of winning the Presidency. Only when it has such a serious chance (usually by replacing the dominant party of one side of the political fence rather than being in opposition to it) is it responsible or intelligent to vote for its candidate in an election such as the US Presidency. Until then, third party candidates such as Nader come across as little more than damaging egoists.

"Maybe SWL would care to let us know the actual amount of govt officials in the US, then we could compare it to the UK."

That made me a bit curious, so I did some looking around.

"There are over 500,000 elected officials in the United States. Of these, fewer than 8,500 are at the national and state level. The rest are local government officials—city council members, school board members, mayors, sheriffs, and an array of other individuals who serve in various capacities."

http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/abtamerica/local.htm

And with that another tiresome political myth bites the dust.

Actually, the myth about the US not needing many administrators reminds me of Boris Johnston's characteristically-silly bit of romanticism "The Dream Of Rome" in which he argued that the Roman Empire was some sort of counterpoint to the EU since it was a huge europe-wide superstate that had very little bureaucrats or administrators. This completely ignored two very important points: 1) the population of the Roman Empire at its height was tiny compared to that of modern Europe and 2) constitutionally, the empire was shambolic being a de facto military-political dictatorship under the auspices of a representative republic. Imperial government was "small" because it was simplistic and the reason "representative" bodies like the sentate had so few members was because the empire wasn't run according to the wishes of its people with the senate being little more than a talking shop and a place to offload responsibilities from Augustus onwards. Also, somewhat ironic given the modern tory lionising of businesspeople, power in the empire lay with soldiers and other "men of action" rather than the merchants and capitalists who largely had influence at a local rather than imperial level and whose egotistical forays into military life (notably the millionaire Cassius's laughable Persian expedition) were scornful. For this reason the Roman Empire was more of a natural blueprint for fascists rather than silly old Torys.

"Only when it has such a serious chance (usually by replacing the dominant party of one side of the political fence rather than being in opposition to it) is it responsible or intelligent to vote for its candidate in an election such as the US Presidency."

The trouble with this is that it is - as I said - elitist and anti-democratic. This sort of thing only happens terribly infrequently. In the history of the US there have been essentially 3 major parties (dems, reps and federalist). In the UK, there have also been 4 (since the 17th century): Tories, Whigs, Liberals and Labour. That makes 3 changes in the essentially two-party system of the UK in over 300 years.

"Whether you like it or not, third candidates entering a traditional two-party race with the intent of courting the dissatisfied voters of one party without any serious chance of winning themselves can only have one outcome: improving the chances of the opposition."

Well your argument is just logically mistaken unless you make the assumption that elections have an unvarying level of turnout regardless of who is standing, which is obviously wrong. The BNP for example, has an electoral strategy of targeting areas where people tend not to vote. Some have argued that Nader's participation in the 2000 election actually improved Gore's vote because his campaign increased political awareness amongst certain groups. I think this argument turned out to be wrong when you looked at the figures carefully, although it was far from obvious.

That said, I agree that as an individual deciding how to vote in a marginal race, you have to consider that in terms of the likely results, voting for a third party candidate only helps your less preferred candidate of the two that are likely to get in. That's why many left wingers offered the advice during the 2000 USA elections to vote for Nader in safe Dem or Rep states, and Gore in marginal ones. (Possibly some states in the USA have a different form of electoral college which makes this not hold in those states, I can't remember offhand.)

There's another consideration though, which is the long term effect. If you only think in the short term then yes there's no point voting for a third party candidate. In the long term though, you may judge it more valuable to vote for a third party candidate even in a marginal seat where you know that by voting for a third party you are helping the less good of the two main parties. You might make this judgement because you estimate that the long term value of showing your support for what you actually believe, and hopefully building that party, outweighs the short term cost of getting the less good main party candidate elected. This could happen if the difference between the two parties is very small, if the third party differs very radically from the two main ones, or if you consider that the political landscape is in a transition period with one of the two main parties about to be supplanted by a third party.

Incidentally, wouldn't it be terribly anti-democratic to choose not to stand in an election because you don't trust the voters to exercise their vote strategically?

Qoute; "Why is this a bad reason? Because the logical conclusion of that type of thinking is that nobody should ever stand for election who isn't a Dem or a Rep - and this is a recipe for anti-democratic, elitist politics, even worse than the current system."

No, like the Republican canditate right now, I would have voted for him because of what he wanted to accomplish ánd that there was a slight hope he would win.
In his case, I would vote, even for the symbolic impact that he might get 20% of the votes, because always these two; it's suffocating.

Furthermore; in theory I sympatise with some of his iedeas, but declaring that he's responsable for all that Bush does is my favorite sin

God knows; it's just only vanity in his case. No one can without, but Nader. Your political behaviour should always be related in someway to the political fight about power in the arena.
Nader doesn't mind at all who would win; Bush or Al Gore.
It's been clear, that if Nader would have been loyal to the USA and the global family, he should have stopped campaining and Gore would have been president and Gore is a real wise man with real "karakter",
in Dutch. "Character?"

Greetings from free Amsterdam,

Alfredo. Vote for one of my four 50% american daughters..Far more important than world peace,a good climate and other irralevent things

http://www.monroegallery.com/detail.cfm?id=297

"The trouble with this is that it is - as I said - elitist and anti-democratic."

No it isn't. I explained how a third party can and should prepare itself for power so I'm not arguing for two-party dominance; simply that third parties should stay-out of major elections such as a Presidential race unless they are confident that their support is large enough that it wouldn't split the vote so much as usurp one party.

"Well your argument is just logically mistaken"

In small constituencies/minor elections it's certainly true that minor parties stand a good chance (the success of the BNP at a local level and UKIP in the European Elections proves this) but in a huge nationwide election in a superstate like the USA the entrance of a third party can only have one outcome *unless the third party has built-up a strong political following that means they could replace one of the traditional two-partys*. If Nader was more serious about changing the two-party dominance in US politics then the smart thing would be to try and build up his party at a state level; success could potentially create support at a national level meaning the party would be represented in federal level institutions. Only then, and using various opinion polls to guage voter feelings, should a third party candidate run for president. As I said, the only outcome otherwise is to either split the Republican or Democratic vote.

Obviously, there are different situations. In a UK general election, for example, we're not voting for a person we're voting for a local represenative. There is an argument about votes being split but it's less clear-cut than something like a US Presidential election (an example being the Liberal Democrats: they are unlikely to win an election but votes cast for them are represented in Parliament unlike votes cast for Nader in 2000 which counted for nothing).

I apologise if this isn't your position but you seem to implicitly put forward the notion that large numbers of votes for the two major parties in any democracy are down to some sort of voter apathy or political disinterest that smaller parties can shake-up. I don't really agree with this: two party systems are usually due to the major parties representing majority opinions. If majority opinion alters then third parties can suddenly become dominant: the NSDAP's radical nationalism obviously struck some sort of chord with German voters in the early 1930s to replace the traditional conservative-socialist blocs with something new. Another good recent example (albeit somewhat engineered) was the new Israeli party Kadima's suddenly replacing Likud in what felt like a matter of months. If people really do want change then they'll vote for it, for good or ill. If they aren't voting for it then it's because they don't want it, for good or ill.

"we're not voting for a person we're voting for a local represenative"

By "person" I meant single national leader; I really should have written that in a rather less stupid way. Apologies.

One should never vote for someone, without realizing the balance of power.
One should ignore the element of strategic voting, because we are not only responsable for our principals, but also - to some extend - for the consequences of our principals.

One should NOT ignore, etc.

I totally and completely blame Nadar for the W debacle. Is this fair? I don’t know but there it is. No doubt the wide right harbors the same resentment of Pat Robinson.

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter as it were.

I think that the whole W administration is a solid illustration that the US election process needs an overhaul.

(hops on soap box)

First let’s start with the primary system. I live in just about the very last state to have a primary. Take a look at one of those color coded maps that all the news organizations have showing who won what primary. Yea well I live in a state that is still white on those maps.

Does this make me feel disenfranchised?

Why yes, thanks for asking it does indeed make me feel disenfranchised.

Clearly “they” don’t care. Just look at what is happening to Michigan and Florida for the heinous crime of trying to get a little more attention during primary season. I have heard some noise about national primaries but I don’t necessarily believe that this would be a good idea either. There is some benefit in paring down the possibilities. What I think we should do is implement a system of 5 groups of states rotating primary dates. If we did that I just might live long enough for my vote to actually count.

Although technically my vote has a greater chance of counting this primary than it ever has before.

Technically that is, I think Obama has all but locked it up.

"One should never vote for someone, without realizing the balance of power.
One should ignore the element of strategic voting, because we are not only responsable for our principals, but also - to some extend - for the consequences of our principals."

Exactly.