Finding the probable best candidate?

[Forest Simmons]

On Thu, 14 Feb 2002, MIKE OSSIPOFF wrote:

> 
> Then maybe there's something to postmodernism. But it's a funny
> word. What would they call what comes after postmodernism?
> 
> Mike Ossipoff
> 

How about "transcendent post modernism"?

In this EM archive thread, what if (for starters) we just stick to a two
way race between two candidates. 

Wouldn't we all agree that the best democratic method is to give the win
to the candidate with the majority of votes, whether or not the voters
have actually based their votes on fact, fiction, or superstition? 

If we cannot resolve the two candidate case, then we have no hope of
resolving the multicandidate case.

Yet in the two candidate case the philosophical question about absolute
best or just best for the voters seems to have no bearing on choice of
method.

Why does that question suddenly become so important when we bump up the
number of candidates by one?

Of course there are additional difficulties with more candidates, but do
those difficulties really have anything to do with this particular
philosophical question?  If so why?

Forest