----- Original Message ----- From: "MIKE OSSIPOFF" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 2:06 PM Subject: [EM] Dealing With Democrats
> > There's been some discussion of using vote-witholding as a stick to > influence the Democrats. I said that the Democrats aren't reformable, and so > the goal should instead be to replace them. How would that work, > with our current Plurality elections?: Poorly, clearly. "Democrat dumping" aids the Republicans without providing any additional public credibility to third parties (and Republican-dumping has the same effect in reverse). It might get the dumped major party to shift toward the "protest" group (if it has a coherent platform) in hopes of pre-emption, in the next election cycle; OTOH, it's got just as much likelihood to drive them toward the other major party to try to get more of the vast number of centrist voters that are convinced that the two major parties are the only viable options under the current electoral system. Of course, the Nader effect should show supporters of any reasonable preference (or approval) voting system that fighting the Democrats isn't a productive pursuit -- instead, you ought to be selling the Democrats on the benefits to the Democratic party of not having, for instance, Green votes be effectively Republican votes. Get a major party behind a sensible voting system out of rational self-interest, and the pursuit becomes much less quixotic. ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
