[EM] Where is the political center? Where will it be?

[MIKE OSSIPOFF]

Alexander wrote:

Approval and IRV would probably never elect a Green, since they're
radical. Same for Libertarians, Buchananites, etc.

I reply:

We can't know that for sure, because we don't really know where
the genuine voter median is. Sure, the media always refer to
"the center" as somewhere between the Democrat & the Republican.
But that's just the center of the Republocrats.

The voter median is a better measure of the political center, and
we'll have no way of knowing for sure where that is till we're
using a better voting system. I suppose better polling could find
it out too, but our political pollsters always ask people
"Whom would you vote for if the election were today", instead
of "Who's your favorite?", or "Rank the candidates in order of
how good they are."

How many people didn't vote for Nader only because they believed
that Nader couldn't win? Nearly all those I spoke to who intended to vote 
for Gore. When Nader was villified by editorials, it was
usually because he was a spoiler who was taking away votes that
, supposedly, were rightly Gore's votes. How amusingly ironic for
those newspapers to be advising about the best interests of
people who prefer Nader's policies, policies that they've never
themselves supported.

Approval would quickly locate that political center.

Also, the political center might not always stay where it is.
With a better voting system, even if the Greens didn't win, their
true support would show, and the media would no longer be able to
ignore them. More people would take them seriously, due to their
better votecount showing. With their ideas receiving more public
attention, more people might realize that they prefer the Greens'
positions and candidates.

Of course likewise for the Libertarians.

Mike Ossipoff



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