- Original Message -
From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: alypius skinner [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2003 11:47 AM
Subject: MVT and policy portfolios
- people spend an inordinate time satisfying extreme voters, even
after
winning a party nomination
They're trying to put together a winning coalition by targeting a
variety
of market segments. You don't see General Motors or Altria/Philip
Morris
targeting just the median car buyer or median cigarette smoker.
~Alypius
Well, this is not a prediction of the median voter theorem. If you have N
policies, the MVT would predict that the candidate would gravitate to the
center of each policy. What you are suggesting is that the candidate would
go to the extreme position for each policy, as defined by some
subpopulation who cares about the issue.
Fabio
Yes, special interests--sometimes including the opinions of the rulers' own
social class--are often more influential than the median voter preference.
Furthermore, if a politician can put together a winning coalition--let's say
one that reliably gives him about 55% of his constituents' votes-- he can
usually ignore those market segments who are not part of his winning
coalition. Sometimes we also see politicians neglecting part of their
coalition--such as Democrats neglecting blacks or Republicans neglecting
religious social conservatives--because, in a non-parliamentary system, they
can be safely taken for granted. Thus, both President Bushes courted the
homosexual lobby, because they knew that the Democrats would not nominate
anyone the social conservatives, however unhappy, could vote for. (And
I'm fairly sure, if David Duke could win the Democratic Party's presidential
nomination, that he would carry the black vote in the general election.)
The Democrats are enthralled to a coalition of special interests which would
never allow someone acceptable to social conservatives to be nominated,
just as the Republican coalition would never allow anyone to be nominated
who was not acceptable to big business interests. As another example,
notice how both Democrats and Republicans in Presidential elections always
nominate someone whose views on abortion are to the left and the right
respectively of the median voter, who, according to polls, prefers more
restrictions than the Democratic nominee will endorse and fewer restrictions
than the Republican nominee is willing to allow. So the two parties, rather
than competing for the median voter, will compete for those market segments
which would not drive away--or be driven away by--the other segments that
make up the core of *either* party's coalitions. In a close election, this
often means that both sides compete intensely for that segment of likely
voters which is least informed, least consistent in its opinions, and most
politically clueless. These people are often the kingmakers in
democracies.
Related to this is the question of whether there really is a median voter.
Let's take 10 issues--abortion, gun control, gay rights, trade policy, tax
rates, immigration, middle east policy, racial preferences, CO2/global
warming policy, and SDI/star wars missile defense. What percentage of
the electorate is in the middle quintile (if we could quantify these issues)
on all 10?
There also is the weight that each voter gives to each issue. For
significant numbers of voters, abortion or support for Israel or support for
Kyoto/the environment or gay rights positions or gun control or
affirmative action policies will outweigh all other considerations. Much
more often, even though one is not dealing with a true single issue
voter, taking the right or wrong position on one issue may outweigh
one's position on 2, 3, or more other issues that are a lower priority for a
given voter. There is also the question of how committed an office seeker
seems to be to a given issue. For example, among Republicans we often see
the following tightrope being walked: the office seeker tries to be
sufficiently supportive of traditional values that he endears himself to the
social conservatives in his party--especially in the primaries--but not so
supportive that socially liberal Republicans in the primaries (or
independents in the general election) will think that he really means it.
On a weighted list of issues, there may not be enough median voters to
bother with. Putting together a winning coalition of market segments is
probably a surer path to victory.
~Alypius
